River Bluff review staff hosts annual reading

SIUE students showcased their literary talents at the annual River Bluff Review reading held at the Morris University Center on Jan. 25.

Mass Communications major Olivia Williamson reads her literary piece "My Heart Hungers" at the annual River Bluff Review reading at the Morris University Center Jan. 25. (Photo by Joe Lacdan)

Mass Communications major Olivia Williamson reads her literary piece “My Heart Hungers” at the annual River Bluff Review reading at the Morris University Center Jan. 25. (Photo by Joe Lacdan)

Each year students from associate English Professor Valerie Vogrin’s advanced creative writing course coordinate, design and edit the annual publication. Only 40 literary pieces and 10 art pieces were selected from a possible 167 literary submissions and 45 art submissions were selected from student submissions.English major Lindsey Taylor served in three capacities for the publication as an editor, contributing writer and photographer. The junior said that the selection process proved to be an interesting challenge to gain an understanding of a wide range of literary perspectives.

“The selection process was interesting, because once we started assessing submissions, I realized that I had a lot of pre-existing biases,” Taylor said. “Being able to collaborate with different groups of people and understand different subjective interpretations of each piece allowed me to broader my understanding of what makes a good poem, photograph, piece of fiction, etc.”

Vogrin said that each year, including this year’s publication students consistently put out good quality pieces of prose, poetry, plays, photography, paintings and short stories. This year’s publication appeared to carry the theme of broken hearts as several entries dealt with that subject including Olivia Williamson’s “My Heart Hungers.” The narrator of the piece detailed the emotional experience of uttering the words “I love you” to their mate.

Taylor’s piece, titled “Jacob, Approaching Kosmos?”was inspired by connections of the human mind and the prospect of artificial intelligence.

Among the standouts Vogrin noted were by English student Stephen Mruzik whose short story based on his time spent in Slavonice, a small town located near the Austrian border in the Czech Republic.

“’Balloons’ stands out because of its absurd, dark comedy,” Vogrin said. “It’s hard to make people laugh about children dying but you heard for yourself that people laughed out loud as Stephen read the story.”

Other standouts included “The Apology” written by James Ferguson based in an unspecified time in the distant past. Ferguson, a Navy veteran, is majoring in English and minoring in creative writing.

“”The Apology’ stood out because it’s rare to see students  write stories set in a historical time – in this case an unspecific year in what seems to be the Old West,” Vogrin said.

The publication was created in 1991 and about 750 copies are distributed each year.

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