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53 °F Forecast | Road Cams Friday, January 28, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Opportunities Moving to Southern Oregon? MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend January 8, 2005 Kyle Stitch, right, is editor of the online �e-zine� SPEWS, a Web-based publishing outlet for Southern Oregon University writing students. Sara Simon, left, is associate editor. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Students publish their work online By JOHN DARLING for the Mail Tribune ASHLAND — For young writers, getting into print has always been a steep mountain to climb, something attained only by the best wordsmiths after crossing the hurdles of agents, publishers and critics. No more. Now, thanks to the digital age, writers, at least those in the English and Writing Department at Southern Oregon University, can proceed directly to "go," posting their fiction, poetry, essays and columns on an electronic magazine ("e-zine") not only for classmates and faculty to peruse, but for the whole world. Self-deprecatingly called SPEWS — Southern’s Publishing English Writing Students — the attractively-illustrated site at www.englishnewsletter.org is posting just about anything written by an E&W student — even those in freshman composition, said Editor Kyle Stitch, an E&W senior. The Web site, filled with "peer-to-peer writing," has proven a ready and welcome outlet for budding writers like senior Linda Olson, who posted her poem, "My Hands," the poetry winner in this year’s Ed Versluis writer’s contest, which comes with a prize of $50 (she framed it). Versluis was an English professor who worked at SOU for 24 years. "It has such immediacy and is a great catharsis," said Olson. "Writing is how I express myself and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It’s really kind of exciting to pull it up (on the Internet) and see it there. It’s a great beginning. Now I’m starting to send things out to publishers." Advertisement The e-zine idea came up last March among students in Professor Mada Morgan’s writing class as an English newsletter within the department and, said Stitch, "we all thought, why not put it online for the whole world to see and save the paper?" Said Morgan, "It’s been an absolutely marvelous opportunity for students to show themselves and their work. It’s been the genius of the students that made it happen." Until now, writing students have had virtually no outlets for their work, said senior Prairie Smallwood, who has posted several poems on SPEWS. "SPEWS is really accessible to us poor students," said Smallwood. "No one has to pay. And you see the writing of people you know personally, people you may not normally have talked to, but now you do. It’s cool, maybe a little embarrassing, because poems are pretty personal." Graduate Mirleen Arnold, winner of the Versluis prize for non-fiction, has, with the press of a button, sent her online story, "Life on the Farm," to scads of friends and family, who with another press of the button, have forwarded it to other friends, some of whom she doesn’t even know. "I wasn’t sure what would happen once my writing got on the ’Net," said Arnold. "I was surprised at the response and how people responded with e-mails." What did she do with her $50 prize? "It was gone the next day. I made sure I spent it on something frivolous, so I bought perfume, which I never get." SPEWS is proving to be a facile resource for writers, linking them to thousands of magazine and book editors, publishers and contests with an array of on-site links and a column titled "Submit Yourself to Writing," written regularly by senior Sara Simon. "It opens a lot of resources right at your fingertips," said Simon, who is angling for a career as an associate editor with a publishing company. "I love the Web site because of the writing, pictures and the interactivity, which is a huge benefit to writers." SOU students Ross Risher and Delanie Lawrence maintain the site. It’s illustrated with random, compelling visuals by the school’s Multimedia Department, which "creates a buzz" in other areas of the campus, said Stitch. Planned are short online videos of writers reading their material. Under discussion now is whether the Web site — which has counted up to 1,000 hits a month, some from as far as Japan and Africa — should be opened to postings from all students. Stitch said they realize that not all aspiring writers have site access that requires being enrolled in the writing program. John Darling is a freelance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers