About the Humdinger Reader

Over the years, it has become clear to the members of the Student Writers' Association (SWA) that the student body at the College of Santa Fe needs an outlet. Sure, we have Glyph, but only about 30% of the submissions to the College's main literary magazine actually get printed. For an even smaller set, the Helman Prize is awarded annually, and the finalists end up in a chapbook - but that's usually only 5 or 6 stories, and the competition is limited to juniors and seniors. Other than printing out your work and leaving it conspicuously on cafeteria tables, there was really no way to get your work out there.

Enter the 'zine. For years it has been on the minds of the powers that be at SWA, but due to a combination of laziness and lack of form, it never came about. In the 07-08 school year, however, we decided to just go for it, to create the 'zine, to get it over with - and modify the rules and regulations as time goes on.

The first step was SWA members submitting possible names. The second step was a mass email to the CSF community, asking for votes on the name. The title emerged, the blog and email were created accordingly, and here we are today.

We have no idea how often we'll publish. Every week? Every two weeks? Every month? Whenever we have enough to produce a worthwhile issue? It all depends on the number of submissions we get and how fast we get them. This is a work in progress.

At the moment I, Charlotte Jusinski (cjusinski@csf.edu), am the proprietor of the Humdinger Reader (as well as SWA's fearless leader). I've served my time on the staff of Glyph and the Independent, as well as putzing about at the Santa Fe Reporter, so I've taken the reins. I'm always down for help, and someday I'm gonna move on and someone will have to take over. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So that's the story. It will keep evolving and more details will emerge as time goes on and we realize exactly what the students want, what the magazine needs to stay afloat, and what rules need to be laid out so we don't get in trouble (uh-oh). This has never been done before at CSF, so there's no foundation whatsoever. Let's start building.