'Yale Literary Magazine' wants to be totally famous

COURTESY THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE

When Chinnie Ding, TD '01, began her freshman year, she was interested in working on The Yale Literary Magazine ("The Lit"). "I randomly met some people who were friends with the editors," Ding said. "At the first [poetry] reading [then-co-Editor-In-Chief] Chandra [Speeth, TC '98] said, `I've heard all this stuff about you, come to our meetings.' I'd never met her. I saw other freshmen at the introductory meetings, but none of them ended up at the selection meetings"--meetings in which the material for the magazine is chosen by staffers from the pool of anonymous submissions.

In other words, Ding felt she had been hand-picked by the editorial board to be a Lit staffer, or at least encouraged more than other hopeful freshmen to return to subsequent, somewhat upperclassman-dominated meetings. Lit PR Coordinator Siddhartha Shukla, DC '00, explained, "There's been a preconception of [The Lit] being an elitist organization." This year's editors, however, insist that current staff policies are no different from the way they've been in recent years.

"I think there's always been a policy to prune the staff a bit, and that's something we're not emphasizing as much," current Co-Editor-in-Chief Darby Saxbe, TC '99, said. "But that's something that happens naturally. You have to do three `tasks' for The Lit to be a staff member and participate in selection meetings, just like last year."

Co-Editor-in-Chief Kamran Javadizadeh, PC '99, added, "In the last five years or so, The Lit has really made an effort to be open to everyone. The things we're trying to change this year have to do with the way we're perceived by our audience. We're more concerned with changing what people who have nothing to do with The Lit think of The Lit."

Established in 1836, The Lit has an image to maintain. Don't believe me? Maybe you should have attended the first annual Parents' Weekend Poetry Reading on Sat., Oct. 10. Held in the dignified oak-paneled confines of the Rose Alumni House, the event featured two well-known poets, George Bradley, SY '75, and John Hollander, Sterling Professor of English, Scoozzi's focaccia bread, even a string quartet. Surprisingly, the reading was a symbol not of The Lit's traditionalism, but of its new mission.

That mission, according to Saxbe, is simple: "We want to be totally famous."

More than just putting out a magazine, "We want to feel like we're nurturing some sort of literary culture on campus," Saxbe said. Poetry readings, both student and celebrity, and workshops, Saxbe said, are all part of The Lit's "desire to propogate the wonders of literature." In addition, the publication of this year's Lit will be accompanied by a gala release party with live bands.

"We're trying to be bigger," Javadizadeh said. "We want to be more of a visible presence on campus, and we're also trying to become more financially independent." The Parents' Weekend reading was a first-time event designed to raise money for the organization. Not only did the event sell out, but many a parent bought up a subscription along the way.

The Lit costs several thousand dollars to produce each semester, and last year's editors left this year's with a deficit, according to Saxbe.

"We have to be creative in how we get funding. We can't get it all from the University, the [Undergraduate Organization Funding Committee], or Sudler funding," Javadizadeh said. To this end, Javadizadeh and Saxbe conducted The Lit's first-ever alumni subscription drive over the summer, sending brochures and letters to 550 Lit alums. The drive raised about $1,000 in subscriptions, plus some additional alumni contributions: "One guy just sent us a check for $1,000," Saxbe said. A drive aimed at secondary school libraries is being launched, and the editors hope to follow up that effort by soliciting Yale Clubs across the country.

Shukla is The Lit's first PR Coordinator, and he sees his position as a symbol of the organization's new goals. "In terms of publicity, there's an upsurge in promoting [The Lit's] image. [Mine] was never a position they thought they needed before. [The Lit is] becoming more accessible to the rest of the community."

About 20 years ago, then-Editor-in-Chief Andrei Navrozov, SY '78, used The Lit as a tool for publishing his politically conservative views and continued to publish the magazine--with funding from the right-wing American Literary Society--even after he had graduated. In response, Yale revised the Undergraduate Regulations to require that all undergraduate organizations be run entirely by enrolled undergraduates. "[Navrozov] then had the gall to sue Yale University for having done that," Assistant Dean and Director of Undergraduate Organizations Philip Greene said. "Yale countersued, and litigation continued until mid-'88, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars." Yale won. The court decided that the name and organization of The Lit belonged to the undergraduates of Yale College.

Considering this bit of twisted history, then, The Lit has made a remarkable comeback in the last 10 years. "I think it's on the road to where it needs to be," Shukla said. "I don't think a complete evolution has taken place, but it's definitely on the road."

Back to A&E...