Volume 1992 Parnassus

Foreword

Parnassus 1992 is just the latest installment in the long history of this literary publication at Taylor. Its existence is a cherished and necessary one, as the only university outlet for poetry and fiction, and as a relatively painless way for young writers to experiment with publication. As any long-time observer will note, the quality just keeps getting better. Every year it becomes a difficult question of how to improve on the previous Parnassus.

This year, the editors and the faculty advisor began with some specific goals. Most important, we set out to print only what we felt was the best of student work, even if this entailed a more complicated selection process and resulted in a much-streamlined magazine. Second, to improve on the annual contest which had, in past years, involved experimentation with categories that weren’t quite successful, in addition to an inefficient, confusing judging procedure. Third, to try a new look, if there were any new looks out there to be had.

Achieving the first goal did prove difficult. All members of the staff being highly-opinionated, we often had clashing ideas as we reviewed the anonymous submissions. Eventually we concurred though hardly unanimously, on a final product that includes 32 poems and 10 stories, from a selection of approximately 200 entries.

We also revised the contest, dividing the fiction into two categories: short fiction (fewer than 1,000 words) and longer fiction (1,000-3,000 words). This year the fiction section is, in our opinion, exceptionally strong.

At the beginning of the academic year, we spoke of replacing the traditional judging committee with a single judge, possibly a poet or professor from a nearby community. We were highly honored to have Alice Friman as judge of the literary contest for 1992. Ms. Friman, a professor of writing at the University of Indianapolis, is a nationally-known poet whose work has appeared in the leading poetry journals, as well as having published several books. On April 28, Ms. Friman gave a reading at Taylor concluding by announcing the winners of the contest.

Aside from the first, second and third place submissions in each category, we have also designated as “honorable mention” those works that did not place but that Ms. Friman mentioned she had enjoyed. “Editors’ Choice,” a designation begun last year, is our version of honorable mention, recognizing non-prizewinning poems and/or stories that the Editors especially liked.

For these reasons and more, we are excited by the publication of Parnassus 1992. With the budget-cutting going on all around us, this magazine is small but meaningful proof that Taylor is still concerned to support the arts.