Literary Event Response: Miscellany Launch Party

Last Thursday night I, like a lot of the rest of the class, went to the launch of this year’s Miscellany at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. Several students who were published this year read from the work that they had submitted to Miscellany, and all of them were a joy to hear. Because I read submissions for the magazine this year, none of what was read was new to me, and yet being reintroduced to the pieces, especially “Where Do Ants Go in Winter?” gave me a completely different perspective on the pieces than I had originally had. I especially loved Jozie’s story “This Week’s Down and Dirty” because I think the school newspaper structure worked so well at meshing together unlike narratives, and the humor of the story, mostly through the perfectly-characterized narrator, felt so natural. I liked “Jo” as well, by Madeline Barry, for it’s combination of cuteness, annoyance, and pity in the title character and the way it made the reader/listener both empathize and disagree with the main character. All in all the reading was fantastic; the atmosphere was so friendly and warm, and all the readers presented such great work, and the magazine itself looks beautiful and contains even more fantastic writing and artwork. (On the art size, I especially love Buns. Both because I liked the message it was communicating and because it simultaneously reminded me of Salvador Dali and Lady Gaga.)