Mitra Parineh, left, a grad student majoring in creative writing, attends Reed Magazine class which meets Monday evenings. Reed Magazine features poetry and short stories from around the nation.
"Without knowing why, I tell the story my father told me, the only one I can really remember, about the battle in the summer, and the rains, and the skeletons, and the battle in the winter, and how you can't just expect the dead to go away," Killen writes.
Killen's words earned the Arizona resident Reed Magazine's John Steinbeck Award for best short story.
Current Reed Magazine faculty adviser Chris Fink conceptualized the Steinbeck Award in an attempt to broaden the visibility of the publication, he said.
"There's more exposure because of the name and $1,000 award, which is a substantial dollar amount," Fink said. "We turned Reed into a national magazine from just a campus magazine and now we receive international submissions."
Scott Rice, chair of the English department and comparative literature, said the magazine has been around for a long time.
"I believe it is billed as the oldest student publication west of the Mississippi - I think it goes back to the 1920s and its current incarnation dates back to 1946, a little more than half a century ago," Rice said.
Mitra Parineh, Reed Magazine's poetry editor and a creative writing major, said Fink is the reason why the magazine has become more successful in recent years, since he signed on as adviser in 2000.
"He has single-handedly turned Reed around from a drab, rather poorly assembled magazine into what it is now - a quality, well-crafted journal," Parineh said. "He recruits good students, trains them, and makes them want to stay, all while managing to give the staff absolute artistic freedom."
Alan Solis is a graduate student in the Master of Fine Arts program. This year he is balancing his time as a software engineer and as Reed Magazine's fiction editor and webmaster.
Solis said the magazine publishes fiction, poetry, visual art, book reviews and author interviews.
"We are somewhat unique among literary magazines in that the publishing decisions are made primarily by the students who work on the magazine," Solis said. "As an MFA student, I also thought it might help me get a better appreciation for what gets published, and the types of and quality of submissions that literary magazines receive."
Parineh said the editors read poems that portray a variety of subjects, but are primarily searching for good work, regardless of genre or meter.
"We read metrical poetry, blank verse, free verse, sonnets, whatever we get," Parineh said. "The poems portray any variety of subjects."
Parineh said she and the staff received a few hundred poems this year.
"It varies year to year, but on the whole we've been receiving more and more each year - better and better work," Parineh said.
Fink said the magazine is usually close to 200 pages of fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry stemming from roughly 60 contributors, with the addition of four or five visual artists solicited by the art editor.
The new issue is due out by the end of March, just in time for the Associated Writing Programs conference, Fink said.
"I'll be attending the AWP conference in Vancouver, taking student editors with me," Fink said. "We have a booth at the book fair where we plan to market the magazine."
Parineh said she attended last year's event in Chicago.
"The conference is really amazing with guest speakers, famous authors, small forums and book sales," Parineh said. "It is a mad convention of people who are doing what you're doing - they're all at various stages in their careers, and it is great to just be a part of it."
Fink said there is also a kick-off party in April to celebrate the printing of this year's issue.
"One of the nice things about doing this, the students form a tight-knit group, like an internship more than a class," Fink said. "It's designed to be taken an entire year and some students have taken the class two years in a row - it creates a sense of community, which is nice on a big campus like this."
Parineh said even relatively tedious tasks such as proofreading seem enjoyable because of the camaraderie and company of the staff.
"Everyone's in it together, so you laugh about it and it really becomes a great experience," Parineh said. "Just last night I was in the office with a few Reed friends till 1 a.m."
Rice said the magazine is available in the English department and online.
"It doesn't argue a particular point of view," Rice said. "It's interesting for the quality of writing itself, the content, art and information."