Students Share Unique Creativity on Campus in Manhattan Magazine and Logos

Nicole Fitzsimmons Senior Writer

Manhattan College students share their passions and creativity on campus by submitting their works to on-campus student journals: Manhattan Magazine and Logos.

Manhattan Magazine is released each year emphasizing student non-academic, creative nonfiction or fiction works including poetry, photography and digital arts. Logos is a place for students to share their academic writing from inside and outside of the classroom.

The intersection between these two journals offers students the opportunity to engage with forms of art they’re most passionate about and share that with Manhattan Colleges’ campus community.

Adam Koehler, Ph.D., chair of the English department and faculty advisor of Logos, explains how these publications interconnect and even grew from each other. When Koehler was the faculty advisor of Manhattan Magazine in past years, funds saved from a new printing process offered an op- portunity to assist students in creating a separate journal for academic works, now known as Logos.

“The way that they speak to each other is very important for young scholars and writers to imagine themselves and I think every, especially English majors, but any liberal arts majors should be imagining themselves, certainly as scholars but also as writers, and I think having those twin projects gives a home to those different kinds of identities,” Koehler said.

Current faculty advisor, Dominika Wrozynski, Ph.D., is the first creative writing professor hired on a tenure track at MC and states that on-campus publications give students in every major at MC an opportunity to engage in creative works.

“Both Manhattan magazine and Logos are technically clubs,” Wrozynski said. “So, any student from across the college can join staff or work on layouts, and that is great because somebody in engineering who’s also interested in art can work on a magazine, for example. Because of that, we’re able to get student engagement funds, and both John Bennett and Sharon Ortega over there at Student Engagement have been really supportive.”

The process of creating these publications is another perk because students get a chance to become editors and see what creating a professional journal takes.

“Manhattan Magazine, it’s really an opportunity for students to work closely with faculty on what it takes to not just produce a literary magazine, but also read the entries critically and talk about what they are okay and not okay with publishing and sort of trying that hat on as editors to do that with faculty members is a really positive experience,” Koehler said.

Angela Ramoni, senior religious studies and English double major, is the editor-in-chief of the Manhattan Magazine and explains how creative and open-ended the process of putting the magazine together is.

“That takes a while, the creative process of putting it together,” Ramoni said. “Sometimes other students design the cover and it’s very much us, our decisions, and then when we decide what we would want to put in the magazine, then we’ll go to advisors and see, who does the final proofreading for us.”

After a blind review process of submissions, the board offers three responses: acceptance, revisions and resubmissions, or rejection in some cases. Afterward, the production team works to put a magazine together with pages of art and creativity.

“I think it’s the only publication that really has all different types of writings, like poetry, fiction, nonfiction, anything… anyone could submit it. There’s not like a strict process,” Ramoni said.

At the end of the year, a release party for the publication occurs and offers an opportunity to celebrate students’ works.

“The release party is always a highlight of the spring semester,” Koehler said. “I think it’s wonderful to celebrate all that where it’s very cathartic, it’s at the end of class. So students need that space between classwork and finals week to kind of take off.”

Submissions are being accepted now for Manhattan Magazine and Logos for the 2023 release of these journals.

“I think that people should know they can trust those read- ers,” Koehler said. “They can trust those editors, that they’re not taking that work lightly. And I think that one of the beautiful things about Manhattan Magazine, is people are genuinely excited to get the submissions, happy to read them. So don’t be afraid to submit.”

To submit any work for consideration, email manhattanmagazine@manhattan.edu

Logos’ most recent publication from Spring 2022. NICOLE FITZSIMMONS/ THE QUADRANGLE