About

About a year or so ago, I thought it might be fun to join Xpress Magazine.  I was half way through my (first) senior year, and somehow I’d met all the necessary prerequisites with slightly-above-minimal pain and suffering.  But even after a host of journalism courses, it was really the literary end of the writing spectrum that sparked my interest.

By no means would I throw myself in with the likes of Neil Gaiman or Ernest Hemingway, but it was easy to get bored to death by years of the hard news formula hammered into our heads, and the notion that a magazine could provide a space for creative and literary styles to flourish accounted for its appeal to me, and others, I’m sure. Both Gaiman and Hemingway even started their careers in journalism, using their jobs as platforms to foster their talents, transcend the conventions of the medium, and cement themselves in the modern literary canon.

But not every great journalist goes on to be a best-selling fantasy writer or the suicidal, alcoholic face of American Modernism.  Even within its boundaries, however, journalists like Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, and to a more inflammatory, pop culture-savvy extent, Hunter S. Thompson and Gavin McInnes, were able to infuse a voice relevant to their generations in their work.  In the digital age, style and perspective are crucial in maintaining what’s left of the fleeting public interest in print media.
On campus one day, I described to my friend about all of my plans and dreams for Xpress with an idealistic vigor, to which she replied: “What the fuck?  We have a school magazine?”

Nonplused, a little confused, mostly disinterested, she reflects most of the student body: often unaware and usually not giving a shit.  Harsh.  Clearly, we need a little (maybe a lot) more to solidify our presence among our peers.
Regardless, what you have before you is a stylistic exercise, having brought together the multitude of voices and interests on our campus via the microcosm that is this semester’s staff.  The rules have changed, expectations are higher, and it’s been a pleasure curating the various creative minds on our roster.