CHARLEMONT — Several Academy at Charlemont students are launching in June a bi-annual literary magazine, 2-West, and inviting any western Massachusetts schools to join.
“We are allowing all the schools to participate, all their students to participate, in putting their art inside the magazine,” Academy student and magazine co-founder Annabeth Cutler said.
The magazine, which already has a website and may also have a print version, will accept almost any kind of content – creative stories, personal essays, poems, illustrations and more. The hope is to “connect high school students in Western Mass. through poetry, prose and visual arts,” co-founder Claire Gruenberg said.
The initiative emerges from a new “inter-school council,” one of several multi-grade student groups at the Academy. The inter-school council’s objective is to faciltate relationships with other schools, Cutler said. The sixth-to-12th-grade school has only about 15 students per year-group.
Co-founders hope to secure six or seven student editors, some from different schools. So far, the magazine has four editors: three Academy students and one Stoneleigh-Burnham student. Academy students and teachers have sent email to nearby schools, including Mohawk Trail Regional, to tell them about the magazine and encourage their participation.
“It will be a fully inter-school magazine if we have editors from all over,” Gruenberg said.
Magazine co-founders are also planning to host a live open-mic event this year. Contributors from all schools will be invited to display their artwork and read their stories aloud.
The deadline to apply to edit 2-West’s June issue is April 1. Submissions are due April 22.
The magazine link is https://2-westmag.wixsite.com/2-west.
Reach Grace Bird at gbird@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 280.