The publication of the first issue of The Round adds a new magazine to the University's collection of literary and artistic journals. The magazine — a collection of poetry, prose and visual art — includes work by Brown undergraduates, graduates, students from other universities and several pieces by professional writers.
The founders of The Round — Elizabeth Metzger '11, Daniel Loedel '10, Frannie Hannan '10 and Sylvia Linsteadt '11 — came up with the idea for the magazine last fall and fundraised throughout last year. Since publishing its first issue a few weeks ago, The Round has become an official student publication The name of the magazine comes from the idea of a musical round, a "musical conversation that draws on and responds to the voices that have come before it," The Round's editors wrote in an e-mail to potential contributors. The editors aim to recreate a similar conversation with writing and visual art, featuring both critical essays on the state of literature and creative work.
Loedel, one of three prose editors and the design editor for The Round, said this conversation is the dialogue between writer and reader, and between a writer and all other writers — past, present and future, amateur and professional.
To this end, The Round's first issue featured writing by poet Paul Muldoon and novelists Mary Gordon and Michael Burke, as well as an epigraph from Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and a poem by W.H. Auden.
Loedel said the editors hope publishing student writing alongside professional writing will encourage young writers to "take themselves seriously."
In her foreword to the new issue, Gordon made a similar point, urging writers to "risk large terms" — to aim high, to never shirk the "difficulties of writing" and to remind readers of "what it is to be most fully and richly alive."
Loedel said The Round considers submissions from anyone, not just artists and writers affiliated with Brown. Its editors look for works that are "far-reaching," he said — pieces of art and writing from a range of voices, with a wide potential audience.
Editors of The Round plan to publish an issue at the beginning of each semester. In the future, Loedel said, they hope to expand the presence of visual art in the magazine while still publishing a variety of writing.
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