It wasn’t easy putting together a magazine virtually but the staff of Glenbrook North High School’s Literary Magazine (Lit Mag) managed to do it. And they did it so well that their winter/spring edition, “Eventide,” was honored with a REALM (Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines) designation of Excellent from the National Council of Teachers of English.
Honored schools receive a certificate denoting their award and the names of the student editors and advisers appear on the organization’s website.
“This was our fourth year in a row winning so it was not unexpected,” said Kerry Galson, one of the faculty advisers. Robert Milkowski is the other.
Galson noted that in the past the magazine has received higher ratings. National judges rate the magazines on a point system: REALM First Class winners earn 93-100 points; Superior, 86-92 points; Excellent, 71-85 points; and Merit, 70 or fewer points. The exact point score the magazine received was not shared with the competitors.
Although Galson was initially disappointed that the magazine wasn’t rated higher, she said, “When I took a step back, the cool thing about this magazine is it was produced entirely by kids on Zoom. Last year was a really challenging year, particularly for kids who are going to class all day on Zoom and then logging in to yet one more Zoom to be part of an optional club.”
She observed that it was a challenge for the staff members to figure out the complicated software they needed to use to design the pages from their homes.
That contrasted to the usual procedure where the staff members sit around butcher block tables in the graphic design room reading the accepted written submissions out loud. Then they choose a piece of artwork to accompany each submission. After that, they sketch out a design for each page. It is a very collaborative process.
The magazine comes out twice a year, featuring poems, stories, and artwork from the school’s students. “The kids jury all of the written and visual arts submissions and then my co-advisor Robert Milkowski and I make the cutline, determined on budget, how many pieces we can accept,” Galson said. “At that point, the kids start seeing what has been accepted into the magazine and start picking up on themes that are in the writing and the art submissions.”
Generally, there are around 30 students on the staff. Staff members aren’t given specific duties. Everybody has the opportunity to work on every aspect of the publication. Since the beginning of the year, the staff has worked in-person.
“Eventide” is 44 pages long. It includes prose, poetry, and artwork by multitalented editor
Saruul-Erdene Jagdagdorj, is a senior who has worked on the publication since her freshman year.
“We don’t have formal titles but I am part of the leadership committee,” Jagdagdorj said. “I have usually taken over a leadership position of routine things, like making sure that each necessary part gets done.”
Jagdagdorj was worried that COVID-19 would curtail publication of the 2021 magazine because it wasn’t published the year before.
“I emailed Miss Galson and Mr. Milkowski a few weeks before school started and we had a meeting and talked about how we would convert it to an online format,” she said.
Jagdagdorj reported that she enjoys the cookies that adviser Galson brings to their in-person meetings and missed them when the process was virtual. There are other things she likes about being on the staff of the magazine, though.
“It’s such a unique experience to be able to handle the work of really talented young artists, photographers, writers, poets, and be able to put it together in a cohesive and beautiful way,” Jagdagdorj said. “I feel it’s unique also to have such a supportive community surrounding it because a lot of my closest friends I’ve made through Lit Mag.”
Senior Tacy Guest has also worked on the magazine since her freshman year. “I really love the jurying selection,” Guest said of the steps in which she is involved. “I’m a poet myself so I really like looking at other people’s poetry, learning from it, critiquing it, learning ways to make my own poetry better from it,” she noted.
Guest admitted that it was disappointing to her that when the magazine was created virtually she didn’t have the software on her computer to be able to design pages.
Having the magazine win that REALM award was meaningful, Guest said, because “it was wonderful to hear that our work and the work of the student body are being appreciated and that, despite the pandemic, we were able to create a really interesting and unique product.”
Adviser Galson concluded, “I think for some kids it was a really important part of their mental health last year.”
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
