By Camille Kelly | Reporter
The English department will launch a new international literary magazine, Independence Literary Review. Dr. Laura Biagi, lecturer in the English department, will teach a class in the fall that publishes the literary magazine.
Students will begin working on this project alongside Biagi and will have a role in selecting the poetry, fiction, nonfiction and art that will be published in the first issue of the magazine.
Unlike the Phoenix, the undergraduate literary magazine created for students to submit their own literature, this magazine will publish pieces from writers around the world.
“It’ll be a magazine that is launching with that very first fall class in December,” Biagi said. “It’ll be the very first issue, and the students will also have a chance to be editing … As well as designing for the magazine and the cover. It’ll be a really cool opportunity for the students to not only have a huge impact by launching the magazine but also learn a ton about the publishing and editing process.”
Cypress junior Madeline Howard, a current student of Biagi, is interested in joining the literary magazine publishing class in the fall.
“It’s a really unique opportunity for people who study literature to be able to do something that’s a bit more on the ground,” Howard said. “I think that it’s a sign of Baylor’s growth as a literary culture: that we’re branching out from publications that are mainly for a Baylor audience to publications that can be circulated around the world.”
The class will also help spearhead a new initiative in the English department to give students opportunities to earn a literary editing and publishing certificate. This project is currently in the final stages of approval.
Biagi herself has worked in publishing for over 16 years, having been editor in chief of Southeast Review, fiction editor of The Gulf Post and a literary agent.
“I solicited authors, including Yoko Ogawa, who’s this really amazing fiction writer,” Biagi said. “She worked with a translator because her first language isn’t English, and that was really amazing to get her. So, for Independence Literary Review, it could be people along those lines.”
According to Biagi, the English department has always desired a national literary magazine.
“There have been a lot of student magazines, but we haven’t had a national and a global magazine, and we feel like Baylor is positioned in a really cool way to launch this and help create a conversation about writing that’s out there,” Biagi said.
The magazine will also feature folios on specific themes, which Biagi said will allow it to adopt an interdisciplinary approach.
“Our first folio is going to be a medicine, health care theme,” Biagi said. “I’ve been starting to think about some artists that we might choose that could be potential cover artists for having this medical focus.”
The first issue is scheduled to come out in December, both online and in print. The department is still working through whether the physical copies will be available on campus or for purchase from the English department.
According to Howard, creating a magazine and ending with a physical product of what they designed is an exciting opportunity for students.
“I’m pretty open to whatever they need me to do to help serve this very literary mission,” Howard said. “I think what I’m excited about is the idea of having a physical magazine that goes into people’s hands. That’s one of the most impressive things about literature, is that it’s a physical artifact.”
