RED WHEELBARROW 2006 GREEN SHEET

& PRODUCTION SCHEDULE

 

EWRT-065-01 (#0780), EWRT-065X-01 (#0781),

EWRT-065Y-01 (#0782)

Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine

Classroom: Sem 3

Weekly meeting time: 3:45-5:55

Instructor: Ken Weisner, 864-5797

Ken's Office: FORUM 3G 

Office Hours: M-Th 12:30-1:30

Magazine office: L41 read manuscripts here

and on listserv

weisnerken@fhda.edu and gyre@cruzio.com

 

Prerequisites: 

Advisory: English Writing 200 and Reading 201 (or Language Arts 200), or English as a Second Language 261, 262 & 263.

 

Course Description:

Collaborative evaluation and selection of manuscripts and art work. Magazine design and production, both print and web based. Magazine management, publicity, advertising, promotion, marketing, and distribution.

 

Online group, listserv (broadcast email for Red W staff & friends): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/redwheelbarrow

redwheelbarrow@yahoogroups.com

Ken’s home page: http://members.cruzio.com/~gyre/ken/

Ken’s faculty page: http://faculty.deanza.edu/weisnerken/

 

The tentative editing and production schedule:

 

April 12 Introductions, information sheets, orientation.

 

April 19 Whole staff meets to discuss work in hand.  

          Debrief interview. 

Publicity, solicitation reports.

 

April 26  Editorial, work in hand, continued.

 

May 3     Editorial + Interview transcription today

 

May  10 Editorial

 

May  17  Editorial   

SUBMISSION DEADLINE MONDAY, MAY 22, 5:00 P.M.

 

May   24 Editorial

 

May   31  Editorial

 

June   7  Editorial plus art decisions. Order, design.

Production time. NOTE:  Save some extra time for June 7st-15th—our most intense time!

 

June  14  Book should be in final production stage by tonight: close to press ready. Proofread.  Send out 15th.

 

June  21  Send out final acceptances, "rejects,"

publicize event.

 

June  28  Book in hand; book party: 

Reading + Contest winners.

          Tentative schedule: 4-6: prepare event.

6:15-8:15, host event.

 

     *******        *******

Course Goals and Requirements:

Greetings Friends of the Wheelbarrow; welcome to “the making of a literary magazine in three months”! We did it last year; we did it the year before; we will do it again! Our plan is to have the book in hand finals week (our big day, Wednesday, June 28th!)

 

All student edition manuscripts will be anonymous——names removed.  Manuscripts will be logged in with a number instead.  We can refer to the pieces by number and by title and by other stuff like you know “the one about the flying cow,” etc.

 

All manuscripts are logged in by instructor or managing editor. Staff members should read all student submissions and rank them as “yes,” “no,” or “maybe” after initial read.  Substantive comments are especially useful since they will jog your memory during class discussion of submissions. Comment/rating are sheets (available in L41). Write all comments on the outer envelopes and comment sheets. Posting comments to the Yahoo site is also important. I will get you signed up on the Yahoo site by the end of this week. Look out for the invitation in your email; you need to respond to it. Reminder: please don’t accidentally write on an original manuscript (unless we have already agreed to ask for revisions and are working on the manuscript with revision in mind).

 

Electronic manuscripts are encouraged, even preferred. I will log them in, print out one copy for the office (and for use in meetings), and then most often post the piece as an attachment on the website.  We can comment on manuscripts through the listserv, using it as a forum. If we have a volunteer on the staff to scan worthwhile hard copy manuscripts into electronic form, then we can post more material that way.

 

Check the listserv/e-mail for meeting agenda updates. Work in the wire basket in the L41 office: is work we plan to discuss that upcoming Wednesday afternoon. Read and prepare for Wednesday meetings, and comment on the work——especially all work in your genre area if you are specializing. That is the "homework" in this course!  One other reminder: please don’t remove manuscripts from the office without special permission.

 

Please do not to be overly flip in your assessments; the work we are evaluating could easily be from one of us on the staff or from someone’s friend! Unfavorable evaluation need not be mean or sarcastic. Ours is a fun, important task requiring respect for truth, for art, for craft—and for one another. When our own work is being discussed, we don’t let on. Like all writers through eternity, we keep our hopes sky high but also stay prepared to wallpaper our rooms with the requisite collage of rejection slips.

 

On Wednesday afternoons, we will focus on discussing "maybes"——poems, stories, plays, etc., from the wire basket.  Votes are taken after plentiful discussion; everyone gets an equal vote.  Up through May 24th, we can still vote to put work back into the maybe pile, or to ask for revisions—or to put off tough decisions. But May 31st is the day of reckoning: only yeses and nos after that.  Notice that the submission deadline is Monday, May 22nd by 5:00 P.M.  Tell your friends to send work, and send some yourself! Encourage everyone to send work in EARLY.

 

Our first job as a group is to get out there and hustle work! Tell your writer-friends that the best-case scenario for submissions is email. A De Anza student (who has attended De Anza even any one quarter of the 2004-2005 academic year) can submit: up to five poems; one short story of up to 4,000 words (16 pages) or three “short shorts”; one play or screenplay (4,000 words); up to five black and white prints or b/w digital files (.tif or .psd format) for photographs or drawings; up to one b/w comic strip; a book review of up to 1,000 words; or any other creative text or image that you can imagine that I have left out here! 

 

This quarter we also have the privilege of being able to print a special interview of superstar poet and essayist Gary Snyder (conducted at Villa Montalvo by De Anza students on Friday, April 14th). We will transcribe the interview by May 3rd, edit and discuss how to print it, and I will post it (with some photographs of the event) to the listserv as well. As always, we will also publish the winner of the Carolyn Keen literary essay prize (for the best critical essay about literature this academic year by a De Anza student), and we will award 1st, 2nd and 3rd cash prizes to the best writers in poetry, fiction, and art, at our end of quarter reading/celebration (these awards are arbited anonymously, by an outside panel of judges).

 

Bring your own creative thoughts and suggestions to the table.  We want to involve De Anza literary and artistic talent in any feasible way. Got any ideas?  Let's have a great quarter and make a great magazine!  —kw

 

Areas you may wish to specialize in:

Poetry Editor:

Fiction Editor:

Art Editor:

Interview recording, transcription:

Managing:

Production:

Proofreading:   

Publicity:

Marketing, distribution:

Event coordinator:

Contest coordinator:

Videographer:

E-Zine dream/website manager:

Other: _____________________

Last Updated: 7/31/23