On April 11 in the Student Union Building, a celebratory party was held for the winners of the Mountain Breeze publication contests. The Mountain Breeze is Blue Mountain College’s very own published book, with a new volume coming out once yearly. It features the works of students of the college and has categories for short stories, poetry, one-act plays, devotionals, creative non-fiction, formal essays, and art. It is a great chance for students to get experience publication as well as money from the cash prizes.
I got the chance to attend the celebration party at which the winners read their submissions aloud. Of the pieces read, I particularly remember Jamie Henderson’s Scarred, a creative non-fiction piece detailing how she obtained various scars she bears, as well as Sarah Snyder’s short story titled Photograph, Spring Break, 2020, which was about a little girl obtaining food from a schoolteacher during the summer of 2020 amidst the pandemic with a surprising twist.
Addie Grace Putnam, the student editor of this year’s Mountain Breeze, had this to say about the job of editing: “[Editing] was fun, I enjoyed it very much. There was a lot to it that I wasn’t aware of at first. I was in charge of sending out information for everyone who wanted to submit as well as categorize their entries—that was all in the fall semester. In the spring, we contacted the winners and went through and edited every single one of those entries. We read through every page looking for typos, misspellings, anything like that. It was a little bit of a hassle sometimes, but it was fun. Then you get to put it all into a publisher’s form which is a template, which is sent off to Dr. Kerns, and the rest is up to her.”
When asked if she enjoyed the pieces included in the Mountain Breeze this semester, Addie Grace continued, “Yes, it’s always interesting to hear how people read their own writing. You get a little more of a sense of what they’re trying to go for when they read it to you.”
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