A cabinet on the sixth floor houses past issues of the Garland Court Review, which will no longer be physically printed. (Photo/Antonio Garcia)
By Abigail Trujillo
Staff Reporter
The Garland Court Review, Harold Washington College’s annual creative writing magazine, will now be published online, breaking an over 50-year tradition of physically printing the magazine.
This change is due to budget cuts HWC has made to the creative writing club, according to Jeffrey Daniels, club director and HWC professor. Daniels was able to cut the budget down to a very small number, which left him surprised when he found out the news, he said.
“I have to follow directives and at the same time have my students [creative writing club members] get the most from this experience as they can,” said Daniels.
The print magazine gave the creative writing club, who publish the Garland Court Review, the opportunity to promote to a lot of different campuses and circulate HWC’s name, according to Daniels.
To Daniels, the magazine built a legacy and culture at HWC, and to keep that legacy alive, he came up with the idea of publishing the magazine online.
“The idea was that the magazine didn’t have to disappear,” he said.
Many creative writing club members support the change to online publishing in hopes that that it would make the process of retrieving submissions easier, according to June Kim, president of the club. Daniels, however, expects fewer submissions this year than any other year.
“Without this [print magazine] I expect we’ll probably have fewer people aware that the magazine exists. The webpage is probably not searchable,” he said.
During a creative writing club meeting, a student mentioned that he lost the interest from a student, who was planning to submit, after he told the student that the magazine is now online.
“I expect some students to see this less than what it was before,” said Daniels.
Writers may no longer consider the Garland Court Review a serious project, without print, and feel as if they have not been published, according to Daniels. “I think having it and showing it to schools and employers was a very meaningful thing,” he said.
The credibility of the magazine has been lost somehow and students will need to build the reputation from the bottom, according to Daniels. He hopes they will carry the website with the same prestige the print magazine had.
“They have to earn people’s respect,” said Daniels. “Once they earn the prestige, students will be eager to submit.”
The Garland Court Review may benefit from being budget free, allowing Daniels and his students to focus more on learning and less on financial barriers and district approval of the content that goes into the magazine, according to Daniels. Through online publishing,the creative writing club will not be limited to the number of pieces published, and students can voice their opinions on anything.
“I think the website will earn its own legacy,” said Daniels.
The Garland Court Review accepts all types of writings: poems, fiction, short stories; including essays written from anyone like family members, high school students and students from other colleges.
Students can access the magazine at https://ccc.edu/gcr.
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