Journal Review

“The Laurentian 2007” is a literary journal published by St. Lawrence University at the Commercial Press in Canton, NY. The journal appears annually and includes student artwork, poetry, fiction and nonfiction short stories.
The journal is printed in color, and the paper feels solid, smooth and thick. The pages are slightly yellow, or a dark off-white color, but the glossy feel of the paper offsets the antique color. The cover of this journal is creative and colorful, almost like a watercolor painting. It depicts houses on a short road that seems to lead into an ocean, with a rosy sunset overhead. The journal does not look particularly expensive; I would estimate it costs between ten and twenty dollars.
The font and print of the journal is all typical in size and format, except for the table of contents. The contents of the journal rotate in format between fiction, poetry, nonfiction and artwork. It rotates in that order nearly until the very ending “chapters,” when there are more poems back-to-back and only one short story.
The journal has a distinguished appearance. It looks like a novel for young adults, not a literary compilation. The romantic red color of the cover stood out on the shelf.
The only websites I could find pertaining to this journal were brief excerpts of faculty, alumni and a few student biographies.
The announcement of the journal’s mission is subtly written in two spots: at the top of the list of editors, and embedded along with the publication information. It reads, “The students of St. Lawrence University publish The Laurentian Literary Magazine annually … A St. Lawrence Tradition Since 1888.” This issue is a theme issue that follows the tradition of all of the issues published each year prior.
The stories and artwork in the journal are all personally composed and shared by students at this school. They do not have much in common, particularly since they are mixed genre, except that they all represent a personal aspect of the student writers or artists; even the fiction stories. All of the authors and artists are college students, so they are fairly inexperienced.
My least favorite piece was artwork of a beach. I felt that the picture itself did not particularly fascinate me, which surprised me because I absolutely love beaches – and all things water. Something about the cloudy dark blue water seemed eerie and unrealistic, yet it seemed to be a fantasy piece, so I was confused. My favorite story is the first, a fiction piece written by David Torres. His writing is extremely engaging. He is able to depict even the most mundane situations in a lively, amusing, interesting voice. He described seemingly boring things in very interesting ways. He is a gifted writer.
In the future, I would pick up another issue of this journal if I happened to run across it. It was extremely interesting to read their work and the variety of topics was engaging. It reminded me strongly of our class peer workshop groups, except for the editing aspect. For this reason, I would say this journal is a perfect fit for the fiction of anyone our workshop, since it seems like a great place to start where a student with a brilliant story would apply to be published in this journal. If ever asked to publish, I might, although I do not plan on publishing so I would have to consider it, despite the fact that this seems a fairly protected, private journal to be published in.