By Olivia Damiano | Bomber Media
This year’s edition of Janus features 20 writers and 11 artists and is now available in the English department classrooms and The Hub.
“Janus is our school-run literary magazine where we take writing and art from our students and we select them and we take the best ones and we put them into a magazine and we publish them,” said lead editor Owen Stice.
Each year, the Janus staff holds a school-wide contest for students to submit their art for the cover. The cover art has a large impact on the theme of the book and deciding what kinds of pieces are accepted.
“Originally we were going with this like seventies kind of retro look, and now we’re leaning more into like the retro arcade because the cover, drawn by Mara DuBay, is this cute arcade screen, very colorful. So, we leaned into that when she submitted it,” said lead editor Skylar Pagon.
Mr. Tony Marchesi, the advisor of Janus, introduced the club to many of his English students. This allowed the club to receive writing pieces from many students who had never submitted to the literary magazine before.
“I think it’s great that there is a Janus magazine inside Kenston that allows writers to showcase their work. Mr. Marchesi encouraged me to submit a piece and I am so thankful for his push because this is a unique opportunity that I wish I would’ve known about before my senior year,” said senior Sarah Roman.
Lead editors Owen Stice and Skylar Pagon wanted to make this year’s edition special.
“This year, Owen and I decided to change the look of the text a bit more and incorporate the art in the writing thematically,” said Pagon.
As a student-led organization, the students are able to take more creative liberty as they put together each year’s Janus volume, which is what allowed members of the club to decide to change up the formatting and feel of the 2023 edition.
For anyone interested, getting involved in the club is easy.
“There’s not much to it, you just have to show up to a meeting. You’ll hear it over the announcements,” said Stice.▮
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Olivia Damiano is a multimedia reporter for Bomber Media and a senior at Kenston High School.