Flagler Review launch set for April 12

By Marissa Marinan | gargoyle@flagler.edu

All the hard work is paying off for the 17 student editors of The Flagler Review. Holding the final copy has made it all real.

The Flagler Review–which now goes by FLARE–will be holding a launch event to celebrate the success and hard work of the writers as well as the editors on Thursday, April 12. The launch, held at Crisp-Ellert Museum at 5 p.m., will also feature readings from this issue’s contributors and English faculty.

English professor Laura Smith, faculty advisor of FLARE, said in this issue there is a contributor from as far away as Israel. She also said the launch event exists as a “celebration of all the creative arts that went into making this spring issue.”

FLARE: The Flagler Review is the literary journal of Flagler College. It features the best poetry, fiction, nonfiction, plays, screenplays and visual artwork composed by writers from the United States and beyond.

The Flagler Review, which is now offered as an elective class, began accepting submissions last fall with a deadline of Jan. 30. The student editors then began with blind reads. They took the pool of submissions and the genre editors read all the submissions, selecting finalists without looking at contact information.

“I like being there at the beginning and watching all the hard work that’s been put into it and seeing the finished product and saying that I was a part of that,” said Meghan Cannistra, one of the managing editors.

Two Flagler College students made it through the blind readings and now find their work published in The Review.

“Credit to Flagler College that there are two students that made it in,” Smith said. “Their work was on par with the work we were getting in from all over the country.”

Flagler student Brianna Angelakis is the featured artist in this issue. Her painting, which was also selected blindly, was chosen to be on the cover.

“I thought that was incredible that we have a Flagler student on the cover of the Flagler Review,” Cannistra said.

But Lexi Evans, one of three managing editors, said the best part of being a part of the Flagler Review was learning about the process.

“The overall experience,” she said, “because I do want to be an editor but I wasn’t really sure what all was entailed or if I would be overwhelmed.”

The editors met every Thursday night this semester to figure out decisions, processes and work flow. They also had to read all the work and share their creative inputs.

“We lucked out because everyone working on The Flagler Review came and wanted to give it their all so participation was never an issue, everyone really pulled their fair share,” Cannistra said.

Evans agrees.

“Everyone was really positive and it had a great atmosphere, like the teamwork of it all really encouraged me to really want to definitely pursue this as a career,” she said.