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The Maine Review, the University of Maine’s student-run literary magazine, is getting ready to publish its next edition. But there is one poblem: money.
The magazine has raised only half of the funds it needs in order to go to press.
“Some former donors have not contacted us, and some have said they were unable to give anything this year,” said Bradley Beauregard, one of five editors for the magazine, in an e-mail.
In previous years, the Maine Review has received funds from the Department of English, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the dean of students and the Honors College. So far this year, it has only received money from the English department.
“I feel like that’s a reflection of the economy,” said Katherine Collins, one of the editors.
The editors are still raising money and say they are now seeking more creative routes to fund their publication.
As of Jan. 24, the Maine Review had raised $700, with another $250 pledged from a donor, according to Kasey Spear, another editor. This brings the total funds to $950 — $500 short of its target.
In the meantime, Spear has been checking for grants the magazine might qualify for, but she hasn’t found any yet.
Editors are also looking into soliciting local businesses for donations in exchange for minimal ad space in the back of the magazine. This endeavor has to be cleared by English department chair Naomi Jacobs before the editors proceed.
Despite not yet having the funds they need, the editors remain focused on their magazine and its content. The Maine Review will still be published, full funding or not.
“We’re still going to publish,” Spear said. “We’ll just have to adjust.” Spear added the editors would have to cut back on the quantity of published works and the quality of the printing if they did not raise their usual funds.
In order to encourage students to submit work, they’ve set the deadline for submissions later in the year than previous editors have.
“I think we put it pretty much as late as we possibly could,” Beauregard said. The submission deadline has been set at Feb. 1. In the past, the deadline was set in late December or early January.
So far, the Maine Review has received mostly photography submissions, something the editors and faculty advisors lament. While the magazine does publish black and white art, the editors are looking for more literary submissions.
“It is first and foremost a literary magazine,” Spear said. “The writers are out there.”
“We do want to publish as many people as we can,” Beauregard said, adding the emphasis is more on quality of work than quantity.
“I want a lot of different things in there,” Spear said. In the past, the Maine Review has published a variety of literary genres, ranging from Haiku to short drama.
To encourage a variety of submissions, the editors are trying to reach out to as many academic programs as they can. Traditionally, the magazine receives the majority of its submissions from English students, although there’s no major requirement.
“It doesn’t matter what your major is. You can be creative,” Collins said.
The current editors of the magazine keep in contact with previous editors, particularly the editorial staff from the 2008-2009 Maine Review. Under advisement, the editors are planning on taking more promising but not-quite-there submissions and sending them back to authors with suggestions for revisions. Collins and Spear said they’re nervous this process will offend writers. However, they feel it could help not only authors but also the magazine.
“I find that with writing, you’re never done editing,” Collins said. “You’re never done changing.”
The editors also expressed concern about the process of selecting and rejecting submissions. Professor Jennifer Moxley, one of the magazine’s two faculty advisors, said that a big part of this comes from being a part of a small writing community. Sometimes rejected works are submitted by friends, or friends of friends, she said.
“It helps you understand if you want to go into making a magazine of your own,” Moxley said. “It’s part of that life.”
Even though the editors can ask previous editors and their advisors for assistance, the group is autonomous and dedicated to their magazine.
“Really, they do it all on their own,” Moxley said.
“[Faculty advisors] are our resources if we hit a wall or need help,” Collins said, “but we’re the workers.”
The editors compare the Maine Review to literary magazines from other universities. While UMaine’s magazine isn’t as widely known as the University of Alabama’s Black Warrior Review or The Antioch Review published by Antioch College, the editorial staff has hope their magazine will grow.
“I have dreams of it getting bigger,” Spear said, “but that would be more responsibility.”
“It kind of flies under the radar a lot,” Beauregard said of the Maine Review.
Past editorial boards have taken steps to make their own mark on the publication. The 2006-2007 editors chose to change the name of the magazine to The Beggar. The publication kept that title for a mere two years before the 2008-2009 editorial board changed the name back to the Maine Review.
“Part of the experience of doing it is to make all those decisions on your own,” Moxley said. “Even when they changed the name, I thought it was funny and a good thing to do.”
