ANALECTA is IU South Bend’s award-winning literary journal. It is published once a year under the guidance of a student editor who selects the best poetry, fiction, drama, and artwork from IUSB students. The editor for the 2015 issue is Chad Forbregd. The advisor is Clayton Michaels. Here, Chad answers a few questions about his new position…
- Why did you apply to be editor of Analecta?
Being the editor of Analecta is a rare experience and a valuable opportunity. Analecta is a school tradition. But it is more than that; it’s a powerful tool. It showcases the best student work, but it also represents the quality of our faculty, the university, and the great city of South Bend. It is a permanent record of where we are as a department, university, and community of artists. It is an honor and privilege to be given the opportunity to serve my peers in this position.
As the editor of the 2015 issue of Analecta my job is to select the best poetry, fiction, drama, and artwork from Indiana University South Bend students. That’s not something I am going to do frantically on a last minute coffee fueled bender, but something I am going to immerse myself in and labor over until everyone is holding a copy in their hands. Preferably with some semblance of a semi-satisfied expression stretched across their face on the night of the release party. I think we are going to go big this year. I am thinking about springing for a laser light show with the promise of fireworks, but I am open to suggestions.
- What are you most excited about when you think of editing Analecta this year?
I am extremely conscious of those who have severed in this position before me. I am following a long line of recent student-editors that I respect and admire. I have been reading Analecta since 2006 and I look forward to snagging a copy (or two) each year. I am looking forward to piecing together an issue that they would enjoy reading, and that honors, or at least pays tribute to Analecta’s rich history and reputation for quality. I want past, present, and future students to look back on this issue and see that we’ve got a pretty good thing going on at IUSB. We have a community of artists that are uniquely talented and worth being seen.
Selfishly, the thing that excites me the most when I think about editing Analecta is getting the opportunity to read and see all the phenomenal work by my peers. I am also looking forward to working with Clayton Michaels, my faculty advisor. He’s a bit of a beer snob, but I have a great deal of respect for him as a poet and professor.
- What kind of background experience do you have with writing, editing, and/or Analecta?
In addition to being the 2015 editor of Analecta, I am also one of two assistant editors at 42 Miles Press. For those of you who are not familiar with 42 Miles Press, I suggest you check us out, or at least make a mental note to do so later. 42 Miles Press is based out of IUSB and we publish books of poetry, including the winner of the annual 42 Miles Press Poetry Prize. I consider it a real privilege to serve under the guidance of editor-in-chief, David Dodd Lee.
But I don’t consider myself new to the world of writing and editing. I worked as a freelance copywriter, mostly proofing ad copy and generating musician bios for two years before getting a job at a startup company in Indianapolis as a copywriter. In the three years I spent there I wrote everything from business proposals and executive summaries to Amazon product descriptions and directions to our warehouse.
As a creative writer, poems have appeared in several small publications including Analecta. One of the first poems I ever penned appeared in the 2007 issue and two poems appeared in the 2008 issue of Analecta. So, it’s a personal victory for me to be back at IUSB 7 years later working for the same school publication that gave me my first publication. But please… don’t try and find those issues.
- What ideas do you have in mind for the 2015 issue?
To borrow a cliché, the wheels have been turning. This will be the 45th issue of the student publication and I think that calls for celebration. I think this is an appropriate time to take a look back at where we have been and where we would like to see Analecta go in the future. I want this issue to be something special, and thematic. I’d like it to attempt to tackle something larger than itself. But more importantly, I want the work to shape the issue. I want my peers to show me where and how far to take this issue. I may be the editor, but the purpose of Analecta is to showcase the best student work, so that is exactly what you can expect out of the 45th issue of Analecta.
If this were a wedding anniversary this would Analecta’s sapphire anniversary. Sapphire has a history that dates back to biblical times and has been used to symbolize wisdom, holiness, sincerity, and good fortune. I am not sure how that bit of information will influence this issue but it was fun to spend a few minutes looking up. To be truthful, I haven’t actually slowed down and started the process of organizing my thoughts. I have sort of just jumped right in and tried to learn as much as I can about this whole process. I think it was Richard Hugo that wrote, “Start, as some smarty once said, in the middle of things.” And that’s exactly what I’ve done.
One of my passion projects as editor is to give the Analecta blog a facelift. The editors before me have done some amazing things over the years and I would like to pay tribute to that, and maybe share tidbits of Analecta’s historic past with IUSB’s creative future. By the end of the summer I hope that the blog is a place where students can find submission guidelines, general FAQ, but also as a space to share student work (past and present) and offer a narrative to Analecta’s creative past which dates back as far as 1965.
To celebrate my “inauguration” interview, here is your first piece of Analecta trivia: Analecta first appeared as Realm and has been published under four different titles since 1965.
For those students who are anxious to get their work read, we will be seeking submissions from October 2014 to January 2015. I will be making my rounds preaching the good word of Analecta and encouraging early submissions sometime in the month of October. The trend has always been that Analecta gets flooded with submissions close to the deadline. I would like to see if I can change that this year. I think deadlines are important, and for tasks like writing, I think a hard deadline is crucial. So I won’t be pushing the deadline back or accepting late submissions.
If anyone has any questions, comments, or concerns please e-mail me at iusbanalecta@gmail.com (I assume I will be taking this over).
Well deserved! Chad will do an amazing job. I can’t wait to see this year’s issue.
Thank you sir! You are far too kind. – CF