The Mill, Baldwin Wallace’s annually released literary and arts journal, will be holding a release party as one of two events kicking off this year’s Ovation Festival.
Located in Sandstone 3, the party is geared towards both writers and non-writers alike, as the journal features work from students with a spectrum of different majors. With their work now officially published, 15 students will be reading selected pieces from the journal as part of the event.
“We have a list of readers who have been published who are going to read their work; we have an artist who’s going to talk about his artwork. It’s geared towards the BW community,” said Andrew Devalve, editor of The Mill. “Anyone who wants to come and share the experience of listening to writers and artists who have not officially been published talk about their process and read their work [can attend]. It’s supposed to be a celebration of BW’s creative community, so anyone who wants to be a part of that is always welcome.”
This year, The Mill “features 45 works of art by 32 different students across a variety of disciplines across campus,” said Sharon Kubasak, faculty advisor for the journal and English professor at BW.
The journal was first established in 1948 with its focus being on literary work by students of the Humanities. Since then, the journal has expanded to include non-literary mediums such as photography and, according to Devalve, “some of our best submissions have come from people in the sciences, in math, or in business who aren’t even associated with artwork or creative writing.”
The diversity among majors is something also present in this year’s selection committee, which evaluates each work submitted to The Mill individually based on its artistic merits.
“This year we had four—six including myself and the assistant editor,” said Devalve. “We only actually had two English majors on the committee this year…We try to draw from different things.”
In previous years, the release party has been an event entirely separate from the Ovation Festival. Starting last year in 2018, it has been one of the starting events two years in a row.
“This is our second year of being officially part of Ovation,” said Devalve. “I think it helps bring attention to it. I think some people who otherwise wouldn’t have come will come because it’s been the Ovation kickoff.”
The event will take place April 11 at 7 p.m. in Sandstone 3 and will last about two hours; with an introduction, readings by students, and a reception following the event.