The Inklings literary journal is an opportunity for students to display their imaginative and academic work and to have an experience editing, printing, and operating a literary magazine. It is also the continuation of a tradition that has been practiced by those in the Fieldston community for over a century; the first Inklings was published in 1901.
The key component of the journal is the student-run decision-making process. Each piece of work printed in the Inklings magazine has been selected and edited by the editors with the advisor present as a listener.
The creation, rather the resumption, of Inklings was a result of a proposal from Ms. Apostol in 2015. With the intention of allowing students to direct their own literary journal, she suggested the idea to the English department and to the surprise of many, it was discovered that a literary paper, Inklings, had existed at Fieldston since at least 1901. In 2017, the Inklings project was revived, and has since published hundreds of literary works produced by members of our community.
The 2021 Inklings journal displays a list of the editorial board on the first page, with a brief note about this year’s edition. The opening page of the journal is followed by a five page table of contents, and the entire edition contains over two hundred pages of literary work, ranging from poems to analytical essays to letters.
There are no limitations on who can submit work to the journal. To be an editor, one has to be nominated by a teacher. In the decision-making process, editors are supposed to evaluate pieces based on their own preference, and works are at first submitted completely anonymously. However, the idea is not just to select the writing that is enjoyable to the editor. Ms. Apostol asks the board to take a few things into consideration.
The first thing is the history of Inklings. Ms. Apostol has editors examine versions of the journal from the past century. “I want them to be aware of Inklings also as a historic artifact,” wrote Ms. Apostol in an overview of the process. She wants editors to think of “Inklings as a time capsule, as a reflection of Fieldston and world concerns, and catholicity.” The idea is for those selecting the pieces to search for exceptional works of different writing types as opposed to different paper topics. Once Ms. Apostol has explained this to the editors, she also delivers to them almost full control of the journal.
Inklings is absolutely open to publishing all kinds of academic works including math theorems, science labs, musical notations and more. While it is up to the editors to choose which pieces to publish, they also have no say on what kinds of work they will receive. But, if a student writes a wonderful science paper or biology cartoon, that too can be published.
Editors of Inklings meet each Monday where they discuss and decide on which pieces they would like to publish, after having read all the pieces anonymously. The decision is made by a majority of votes. The next obvious step is that they edit the piece. Each and every edit must be approved or rejected by the writer; Ms. Apostol emphasizes respecting the writer’s work and decisions. Most edits concern simple grammatical errors, others require more communication between editors and writers, but this is exactly the point of Inklings. Real literary magazines might have several rounds of revisions, by both editors and writers, and that is replicated here. The final step, once each piece of writing has been edited and approved, is to assemble the book. A few editors who know In-Design and a book designer construct a layout for the journal, and once agreed upon, it is arranged and printed by Mr. Carl Smith and Mr. Kirk Rubenson in The Graphic Arts Print Shop, located directly under the cafeteria and next to The Rube Goldberg workshops. The editors find themes among the pieces and group works logically in the book.
One of the great things about Inklings is that it consists of writing that focuses on Fieldston and real world topics as well as being a collection of the editors’ tastes of great literary work. Ms. Apostol wrote that the journal can often be seen as “a snapshot of the school in time,” pieces that are relevant today and exemplary of different writing styles.
I spoke to Camille Newman (VI) about her experience as a member of the Inklings editorial board in order to get the perspective of a student who knows the process. Newman is a terrific writer as well as a gifted photographer. My first question for her was, “How do you make your selections as an editor? What do you look for in a piece you would choose for the journal?”
Newman detailed the guidelines given to those on the board. She explained that the editors ask themselves: “Is this piece exceptional for this type of [writing] (history essay, english poem, analytical essay, etc.)? Is this piece diverse (grade diversity, content diversity, diversity of authors)? Does this piece demonstrate the current events (because Inklings is like a time capsule that shows what people are thinking in that time period)? What was your experience reading the piece? Was it powerful, engaging, enjoyable?”
Newman also explained how a piece’s relation to current events “is incentive to include it, but if a piece doesn’t clearly relate to current events, that isn’t a reason not to include it…” “This more so applies after we’ve accepted pieces and have an idea of the content being submitted: what does this piece contribute to the magazine? How will it connect to other pieces?” said Newman. She also described the effect of personal tastes in the selection process; there are some pieces of work that are accepted or declined based on the editors’ preferences. “We also have a ‘maybe’ category [where] we put pieces that we’re unsure about…” said Newman. Ms. Apostle explained how the ‘maybe’ pile tends to give editors the most trouble; there are tons of great literary works, but it is a challenge to arrange them in a way that makes sense.
I then asked about the consequences of the pandemic for the journal. Newman informed me that the shift from in person to online was not such a challenge for the journal. “The transition to remote for Inklings was not as difficult as other clubs and activities though, because most of our work is done online, or easily moved online (ie. meeting during lunch, reading pieces, discussion, voting, editing, emailing authors).” Newman went on to explain the positive effect that online collaboration had for the club’s turnout. She speculated that while people have more time on their hands it allows for more work to be done on the journal, certainly a benefit of such a strenuous year.
Finally, I asked Newman: “How did you get involved with Inklings?” Newman said, “My friend and I started proofreading and editing each others essays for Ms. [Hannah Oberman Briendel’s] class (and we acknowledged each other, so she knew it was happening) and she thought we were good editors and told us that we should join Inklings sophomore year (a literary magazine staff in which there is a lot of editing involved).” Newman and her classmate were unaware that there even was an Inklings journal, however their initiative in editing each other’s work did not go unnoticed when Ms. OB recommended them to Ms. Apostle. Newman explained that she became part of Inklings officially during her sophomore year.
Here is a link to the 2021 Inklings journal.
