Beehive buzzes with faculty, students at OWL literary magazine reading

Beehive Books buzzed with literature on Thursday when students shared their works that will be added to this year’s Ohio Wesleyan Literary Magazine, the OWL.

Among the students participating in the readings at Beehive were senior Diane Bizzarro, junior Alex Crump, sophomore Gus Wood and Bryant Dill, ’11. A majority of the OWL staff was in attendance, along with OWU faculty members and interested students.

Senior Maggie Sullivan, co-editor of the OWL, said she was glad with how the event turned out and believed it provided a great introduction to the newest edition of the OWL.

“I was really happy with how the reading turned out and the work that we were able to highlight at the event,” she said. “I definitely felt that the works that were read really helped give a great overview into the other amazing works that awaited our audience and readers throughout the rest of the magazine.”

Senior Mary Slebodnik, co-editor of the OWL, said this year’s magazine is the best quality she has seen in the past three years she has served as editor.

“The quality of this year’s magazine reveals (the students’) effort and commitment,” she said.

“I think student magazines sometimes turn into coffee table books–students and parents only read the works by students they know personally, but this year’s OWL is different. These works are interesting and entertaining whether you know the author or not. It’s definitely something I’ll pick up a year from now and read for my own enjoyment.”

The 83rd edition of the OWL contains literary works of 13 students and artwork of three students.

The preface of the OWL describes its eclectic endeavor to “reflect the variety and uniqueness of the student voices on our campus” and to introduce the genre of literary journalism in the magazine for the first time.

Junior Chelsea Dipman contributed two of her paintings to the magazine, and said she is glad to see her hard work pay off both in the OWL and in events to come.

“My work this semester has focused largely on the perception of female beauty,” she said.

“I choose my friends as my subject matter because the snapshots of them are timeless in a way … that’s the beauty of painting, you can create something that might outlive you. I also have a show coming up this summer with three friends in Edgar called ‘Women by Women’ and we’re really excited about it.”

Slebodnik said new recruiting techniques might have influenced the improved quality of this year’s magazine.
“I think our campus has had good student writing all along, we just weren’t finding it,” she said. “Students don’t often respond to campus-wide calls for submissions. We still did campus-wide advertisements this year, but we also started personally inviting students who we knew, without a doubt, were good writers. Those personal invitations were really effective in convincing students to submit.”

Slebodnik also said the large staff helped a lot in planning the magazine layout and planning the event, but also made it more difficult to choose which literary works and artwork to publish.

“These works of art and literature are truly the best OWU has to offer … (the magazine) was definitely a labor of love,” she said.

Free copies of the OWL can be found in the library, the English department and the Hamilton-Williams Student Involvement Office.