A Spore is born

Kat Deas

A week from now will mark the beginning of something quite new to the Lawrence scene: Spore, a completely underground magazine committed to publishing virtually every intellectual and creative work submitted to it by fellow Lawrentians.The project’s creator, senior Justine Reimnitz, had an idea three years ago to provide a forum to host the wealth of unfocused artistic and intellectual media flowing through the Lawrence populous. Says Reimnitz, “I wanted this to be a project to cover the spectrum of every part of life, and for people to be whatever they want, and more importantly, to just do what they love. This is a forum for this really creative student body. Celebrate that passion. That’s what this project is here for.”

“I’m not trying to change the backdrop of the Lawrence community,” she continues. “Why can’t we let passionate people just be here instead of covering them up and being so humdrum and serious only about academics? There’s a lot of people here who aren’t like that.”

Spore is currently not a student organization, and it will not discriminate in what it publishes. Says Reimnitz, “I want this to be intellectual, not pompous; creative, not limiting. If you want to rant about something, if you want to be serious or completely absurd, you should have a place to put your energy without being limited. You can’t submit things like that to The Lawrentian. I kept asking, ‘Why isn’t there anything like that on campus?’ There’s a huge variety of media published underground on other campuses.”

So what will Spore look like? It will have at least 20 pages of staple-bound, regular stock paper, mostly in black and white, except to feature color work submitted by photographers and artists. Short essays should be only a couple pages long, and fiction should be confined to smaller short stories. “Look for nice glimpses into things, but I am willing to be flexible with what people send me. I’ll do it differently every term. Forty submissions, seven – it’s okay and I don’t care.”

There are only two instances where submissions would be selective. If there is not enough space in one edition, then submissions will go into the next edition. In the other instance, a literary submission might be better placed in Tropos, but the final decision would be worked out with the author.

The first publication will appear before the end of Term I, and will appear once per term thereafter. It will be free to any student who would like a copy.

If you would like submit to Spore, contact Justine Reimnitz at reimnitj@lawrence.edu.