Last Wednesday, seven editors of six campus publications—ranging from a literary arts magazine with a name that even its editors forget how to pronounce, to an unnamed publication still in progress—were brought together by a common cause: to build a Wesleyan publications community.

“What has happened is that we’ve never been estranged from each other, but we’ve never tried to work together before and do something beyond the scope that one magazine or group could do,” said Kate Gavrial ’09, one of the founders of “Ostranenie,” the literary arts magazine. “Right now the print community is trying to be more of a community.”

While there is no professed rivalry between the publications, there is overlap. Since students often submit to more than one magazine, the editors have come close to printing the same piece twice. Davy Knittle ’11, one of two editors of literary magazine “The Pedestrian,” organized last Wednesday’s meeting in order to create a discussion among Wesleyan’s alternative writing community.

“People involved in the editorial process get so wrapped up in their own publication,” he said. “We need to be conscious of each other’s work, how we’re changing, and know the people who work for the other lit mags.”

In order to do this, the editors went around the room introducing themselves and their magazines. Katie Shelley ’09, representing “Hermes”—a magazine known for political activism since its inception in 1975—spoke first. She said that “Hermes” is working on updating their activism timeline and could use input from students on other magazines.

“[’Hermes’] is mostly political, not literary, but all of you are invited to put ads in the ’Hermes’ for free,” she said at the meeting. “There’s plenty of space to go around.”

In fact, the September issue of ’Hermes’ featured an essay entitled “The Strange-Makers: A History of Ostranenie Magazine,” submitted by Gavrial.

In her sophomore year, Gavrial and three other students started “Ostranenie,” a magazine open to all creative and critical work. They publish at the end of each semester (first semester in black and white, and second semester in color). Instead of editing down longer-form pieces to fit the 64-page journal, “Ostranenie: puts out chapbooks, a type of publication that showcases the work of only one author.

“We leave the work as it is,” said Ali Lillehei ’11, one of 12 editors on the staff of “Ostranenie” this year. “Changing it would be like changing the color on a painting—you just don’t do that.”

“Ostranenie” is pronounced “ah-stra-NEN-nya,” though even among the editing staff, how they say the name often varies. Despite having an ambiguously-pronounced title, the magazine already has as distinct a voice as some of the longstanding magazines on campus—the all-poetry “Hangman’s Lime” now in its 16th year, and the Alpha Delt literary magazine “Ad-Lit,” which is as old as the 152-year-old society itself.

New publications, however, have also been cropping up on campus. Gabe Lezra ’11, a representative from the new literary arts magazine “Limbo,” was also present at the meeting. As an open-sourced magazine, “Limbo” encourages students who submit work to have a vote in the material that gets published.

Regardless of the creation of new publications, maintaining old ones has proven to be a greater challenge. According to Gavrial, one of the reasons for the impermanent nature of literary magazines is that most die after the founders graduate. The other reason, according to Knittle, is that many younger students are nervous about having their work published.

To prevent this pattern from continuing, the editors of all six magazines present at the meeting hope to recruit more underclassman and pool their talents, in addition to retaining the unique spin of each of their publications.

“I know I was scared to death coming into [Wesleyan’s publishing scene],” Knittle said. “If students are writing work that they feel good about, though, they should send it out.”