Journals

FORTY-THREE NORTH

April 24, 2012   

One of my closest friends at Hamilton, Kina Viola, and I recently finished up an exciting and very stressful project. FORTY-THREE NORTH, which you might call our baby, is the College’s new critical journal in the humanities and the ats, and today, it went to print.

FORTY-THREE NORTH was born out of Hamilton’s Department of Comparative Literature—students, faculty and friends of which believed the College was missing this kind of publication. We have weeklies in The Spectator and, more recently, The Topical; a biannual literary magazine in Red Weather; a seasonal student interest magazine in The Continental; humor publications in The Duel Observer and The Wag; student expression and discourse in The Green Apple; and, of course, The Daily Bull, which resists categorization entirely. But Hamilton demonstrated a lack of, and a need for, a publication run by students, for students, that would publish their academic papers. A good grade might be validation enough for some, but others write to communicate—for their work to be seen.

The first time I ever saw my writing in print form was when I interned at my local paper, The Item of Millburn and Short Hills, in the summer of 2009. I wrote feature stories for The Item based on the summer internship experiences of other students my age. The internship earned me my first clips, and it also revealed my passions for interviewing people and telling their stories.

Though I believe my craft and skill have definitely improved since my junior year of high school, I still place tremendous value on the lessons I learned during my time at The Item and am thankful for the opportunity the paper granted me to publish my work. Seeing my writing in print, in The Item and in forms that have followed, has changed the way I’ve thought about communication indefinitely.

Be sure to grab a copy of FORTY-THREE NORTH when it hits campus on Class and Charter Day.