Volume 31 of Manhattan Magazine @MANHATTAN.MAGAZINE/ INSTAGRAM
Andrew Mannion, Sports Editor
Manhattan Magazine is beginning its 2025-26 year with a largely new membership, ready to celebrate the art and creativity of students around the university. With a fall issue already in progress, the club is set to have a large collection of works published at the end of the semester.
The publication looks to celebrate all different arts from within campus. Featuring poetry, artwork and some fictional stories as well, the magazine draws in students from the liberal arts and beyond for their biannual issues.
With only two issues a year, finding students to contribute and advertising the club can be a challenge. Current Editor-in-Chief Emelie Sirgenson wrote to The Quadrangle about the issues that come with drawing new students into the club.
“I think a lot of students don’t know about our submissions process since we only release once a year in the spring semester,” Sirgeson wrote. “I’m working really hard to plan different events such as writing workshops or art workshops in the fall semester in order to serve as a reminder that we have rolling submissions all year long. It’s super exciting to plan these events, and I have been trying to contact other clubs around campus that would be interested in collaborating for some events. One of the greatest purposes of art and writing to me has always been to build a sense of community, so I really hope to achieve that this year.”
Considering the difficulties of recruiting, it’s important to have big events for the club in order to expand. With many liberal arts-based clubs around campus, Manhattan Magazine thrives off of campus collaboration. One of the members of the club, Nate Aaron, spoke on the different events he hopes to see the magazine plan in the upcoming year.
“We want to have it more of a celebration of student artwork,” Aaron said. “We’re thinking about doing a bunch of smaller stuff throughout the year. Stuff like open mics and student art galleries, which we’re hoping we can work with the Art club [for]. I’ve talked to Lucas, who’s the president, about that. He’s willing to do that. Obviously, the [magazine] book is the big thing, but I’m really excited about what we can do differently compared to previous years. I think making this more of a celebration of student artwork would be a really cool thing to do.”
With these events and the club’s members actively working to plan more, Manhattan Magazine has built a unique community that’s regarded highly by many. The celebration of art is no understatement, and the passion between members for one anothers’work is noticeable. Adam Koehler, Ph.D, professor of English, is the club’s advisor and spoke on how special the club is for the students involved.
“It’s just wonderful to have space to celebrate print culture and all kinds of student creativity,” Koehler wrote in an email to The Quadrangle. “Everyone’s talking about AI and ChatGPT and the end of writing as we know it, and I sat in a full classroom yesterday with the Manhattan Magazine staff talking about organizing readings of student work, going to see authors off campus, putting together zine making workshops, organizing short story and poetry writing contests. To see students taking charge over how they want to spend their time as a group is, of course, wonderful – but the fact that they want to use that time to support each other’s creative and critical expression as they approach the publication of their next issue is truly special.”