By Paul Crowley
May 21, 2018
I’m writing this after the fact. I mean, it’d be hard to write about the release party before the fact. “We will have a splendid time, and everyone will love the free panda rides and cotton candy-infused Scotch served by animatronic replicas of the cast of Fuller House!” That would be awesome, but sadly it’s not how time works.
The Furrow 2018 release party was an event that we planned and executed. More details, you demand? Well, OK.
First of all, Shenandoah, our event planner, is a rock of confidence and preparation and gifted comic timing. She will try to say otherwise, but she is being modest for reasons I do not understand in the slightest. I was a co-host for the evening, and I got to share a special fact about myself with everyone there: I sweat profusely in front of crowds. Unlike myself, Shenandoah was calm and cool the whole way.
Secondly, people are way more supportive of an undergraduate literary magazine than I would have suspected. Part of that, obviously, is the seething raw star power available in this year’s staff. You have not lived until you’ve watched Eddie and Stephen agree amiably about their differing musical tastes. You may think you know what love is, but I submit that your love is but ash compared to the affection I saw Kat bestow upon a forgotten piece of poundcake. She called it “foundcake,” y’all. You have not truly feared death until Callie, Kellyn, or Deanna looked upon you with scorn, and then you felt that grim specter inscribe your name on a list. Also, Malachi and Jessie are, I’m pretty sure, going to be millionaires in like three years. So heads up on that.
The other part of the support (remember that? It was at the beginning of the last paragraph before I went all cuckoo for cocoa puffs?) came from the community at large, and it was awesome. In the original sense of the word, so as to inspire awe. I was, when not sweating on stage and being gross, perpetually astonished at the outpouring of support. Friends of mine came, and they had fun. Friends of everyone came, and as far as I can tell, everyone had fun. Our readers were superlative in every possible sense of that word. The venue, Art*Bar, was exceedingly kind to us. Our sponsors helped us generate revenue for the next class. Even the old guy at the back of the bar who is perpetually cranky about wasting his youth seemed pretty happy.
I honestly can’t talk a lot about the event, because being in it, being part of it, meant that I wasn’t able to be detached and ironically amused. I had to be engaged and enthusiastic and also super-duper sweaty. It was a lot of fun, it was overwhelmingly positive, and I’m jealous of the next batch of students who get to do it.
Now it’s time for what I’ve learned.
- “Staff Writer” seems like a made-up role that the Publisher uses to assign the obvious slacker/joker a job where he cannot possibly screw things up. Shows you, I managed to screw up regardless.
- You will, at some point, be tempted to use your age to justify your opinion instead of facts or logical argument. Deny that impulse as hard as you can.
- Quality beats shock, almost every time.
- When shock beats quality, it’s good to have another set of eyes.
- It’s not the Editor-in-Chief’s job to make sure you’re doing the work right. That’s your job. Your job is to do the work right the first time, such that the Editor-in-Chief doesn’t have to worry.
- It’s good to worry the Editor-in-Chief every once in a while.
- If you are offered the tools, the time, the training, and the environment to succeed, you have no excuse for not trying.
- When it comes to writing stories, come out guns blazing on the very first page. That doesn’t mean to have a literal gunfight on the first page of your story, but there needs to be a conflict, there needs to be something wrong, and you need to make that sharper on every page until it all breaks apart. You can start with an idyllic scene of lovers on a lake, but those lovers had both better brewing up problems.
- It’s good I was not an editor. We’d never accept anything for publication.
- There are very clear grammatical and typographical rules, and they should be followed.
- Unless you’re writing poetry. Then to hell with them. Rules are for suckers.
- I may never get poetry.
- Sit next to people who make you laugh.
That’s it for me. I might pop in a few times in the next few months with updates or ravings about Sir Terry Pratchett and how he is the best writer ever, full stop.
Well, no. That’s not quite it. I took this class because after reading the description I figured that I had a pretty good shot at finding an easy job to slack off on and still pull a decent grade. I had the attitude that “undergraduate literary journal” was synonymous with “art on the fridge.” That attitude lasted for about forty-five seconds, or roughly the moment I got into class the first day, saw the people I was working with, and realized I was in trouble. The students were not eager, they were ready. The Editor-in-Chief was not interested in holding hands and getting everyone up to speed gently; you had to work to impress him. The Publisher was kind and funny and absolutely not screwing around with the importance of the journal.
As a person who routinely lampoons the things people find important, I was taken aback by how taken aback I was with my classmates and my teachers. I can, and will, find a joke in almost any situation. It’s my thing, the way that some people can calm wild dogs or other people can fail at life all the way to the Presidency. But that first day, those first few minutes, realizing that the people in there were the real deal and that they weren’t going to accept half-assed efforts disguised as genuine tries, was startling.
I’m not trying to say that every semester of English 418: Literary Journal Production & Urban Dance Seminar is going to be some sort of magical bonding experience between classmates and faculty. I have purposely avoided talking about some of the friction in our class (Meghan managed to cheat in a street fight; that’s all I’m saying) because it was both rare and ultimately pretty inconsequential. There’s a lot of hard work between the first day of class and the day of the release party, and it’s not necessarily for everyone.
I suppose I’m saying that there was more to this class than I expected, and I’m richer for the experience. If you’re a UW-Milwaukee student reading this, I’d suggest you check it out.
