Venture Magazine brought back after four-year hiatus

By Hannah Newman

A realm of creative freedom, a chance to bring ideas to life and the chance to learn the ins and outs of publication are among the elements of Venture Magazine, a student-run publication that came back to life after a four-year hiatus due to COVID-19.

Venture Magazine was a club birthed through an English class, Editing for Literary Publishing, which gives students experience in editing for publication. 

Although the magazine was offered as an extracurricular activity to students who are looking to pursue more opportunities within the literary publication industry, students who took the class wanted to  demonstrate their passion by continuing to work for it. 

Junior English major and editor in chief of Venture Magazine Maura Corman said, “A majority of us wanted to stay on after class ended because we all had a genuine passion for it. Just to read other people’s work, get a better insight and really uplift and bring out the really great work that people are doing.”

The magazine’s first official issue has not been dated, however the earliest physical publication in the English department has been tracked back to the early 2000s. Now, due to budget constraints, it’s only digital. 

According to senior English major and web editor Ashley Morales, “I think right now, [a printed edition] is a long term goal. WordPress has been pretty effective for us,” said Morales. “Right now our goal is just to make sure things…run more smoothly with new people coming in.”

The magazine features poetry, fiction and nonfiction pieces written by students; however, the editors are looking to expand submissions far beyond the student body, according to Corman. 

“We really wanted to focus on the different perspectives of not only the students, but we also want to include alumni, faculty and staff in our submission process,” said Corman. “Our submissions are open to anyone who has been part of our community at some point.”

Corman mentioned that their first issue in four years had roughly 70 submissions and around 20 works made it into the magazine. 

Pieces are chosen by groups that have a strong understanding of every genre submitted.

“We essentially broke up a lot of members into smaller teams based on how many submissions we had,” said Corman. “We had five poetry editors because that was our largest volume of submissions. We had four fiction editors, three nonfiction editors, and essentially, they were just supposed to go through everything and pick out what they thought was most interesting and what they really wanted to push.”

An element to choosing submissions that Corman stressed to editors was to give a brief description of what to look for so writers can have the chance to shape that narrative. The writers’ names were also removed from their submission to keep entries unbiased. 

The submission window was from mid-November to mid-February.

Although the Venture Magazine staff hopes to grow into a club again, the strength of the team will take priority as of now, according to Morales.