Touchstones: MyWord! event exposes the creative talent on campus

Whether you create or simply appreciate art, prose, or poetry, you are welcome to attend MyWord!, the Touchstones release party which will be taking place on Wednesday, April 21 at 7 p.m. in SC 206 A/B.

Touchstones, the feature of the event, is a biannually-published journal of literature and visual art created by some of the most artistically brilliant students at UVU.

All students are welcome and encouraged to submit their own original work that is then impartially considered for publication in the journal.

“In early February, the staff and I, as well as a group of other students who wanted to begin getting involved in Touchstones looked at and reviewed every submission over the course of three nights and decided which were the best of the best,” said Emma Hunt, editor-in-chief of the journal. “We had about 300 submitted pieces to go over — but it was a lot of fun; there’s always a lot of good stuff to read and it generates interesting discussion.”

Many precautions are taken to ensure that each submission receives an unbiased assessment. These include complete anonymity, multiple evaluations and precise codes of conduct for staff submissions.

Along with the responsibility of choosing which pieces will be published, the Touchstones  staff also has to produce the journal itself, which is the most difficult and time-consuming task.

“The most tedious part — for me, anyway — of putting the journal together it the editing. You have to go over and over and over and over a text trying to catch every typo, every misused semicolon, and every stylistic inconsistency,” Hunt said. “After the initial editing, the journal goes through a painstaking layout process that’s almost as tedious.”

The pieces that were selected also had to be judged and thereafter ranked among themselves and the MyWord! event had to be planned and publicized. The staff has been working consistently since before the spring semester even began and their efforts will soon pay off.

“Making an issue of ‘Touchstones’ happen is an intensely collaborative effort. Between all of the small but crucial details involved, there is absolutely no way just one person could take it from a concept to a finished product,” Hunt said. “Really, between its staff, supporters and submitters, ‘Touchstones’ is a community of hundreds, both on and off campus.”

The release party will highlight the published work in this forthcoming issue with food, exhibited art and live prose and poetry readings.

Take a break from finals and unwind at the MyWord! event and enjoy its assortment of original student art and literary work.