By Cailean McLeod
Whatcom Community College is alive with artistic potential, which is what the Noisy Water Review is here for.
The small team that runs the Noisy Water is always willing to take in art submissions of all genres and from all types of students for its blog.
Joanna Kenyon, writing editor, said the Noisy Water Review is an online blog on WordPress that archives submitted art pieces made by Whatcom students.
“Anything that can go on a webpage and that caters to a webpage can be submitted” Kenyon said.
“The anthology is good for everybody, I think it is great for the college because it’s a way of showcasing some of the great creative talent we have here, which there is a lot, showcasing our writers, our poets, our visual artists, and our musicians,” said Melanie Sehman, music editor and full-time music teacher, “for our students it is great for a way to get their work out there and to be published, and this is something they can put on their put on their portfolio or on their resume, which is great for artists who are starting a career.”
“Being able to understand and conceptualize your work as having a readership, having people who are actually going to see it and actually going to experience it, is a really rewarding process, and also just and opportunity to publish your work and be acknowledged for the work you put into these pieces not only feels good, but is also an accomplishment to list as your applying for different things, and then teachers get to read and see what their students are doing which is really exciting” Kenyon said.
Sehman said that the anthology blog can accept audio recordings and compositions as far as music is concerned.
Sehman said she was introduced to Noisy Water just last year when she was first hired as a full-time teacher.
“When I started working here in 2013, there had been was no full-time music faculty for the anthology for a year for the anthology, and it needed somebody to be the focal point for organizing all the music for the it, so it made sense for me to be that person” Sehman said.
She added, “Personally, I wanted to do it because I thought it was a great idea, I am really glad they take in such a wide range of music of different styles and genres.
Kenyon said that last year former art editor Karen Blakley had retired from Whatcom. Thus this year the team for the Noisy Water is in the midst of rearrangement. As such, Kenyon said that the Noisy Water is currently under hiatus until Fall, 2016. However, she says, you can still submit stuff to the review until the next unconfirmed deadline.
When submitting art pieces, the official Noisy Water website says to send an email containing your full name, contact information, and then the actual art piece itself in the form of a JPG format, text document, or MP3 format. More details for submissions can be found in the ‘Submissions’ tab in the website.
Nicola Thompson, writing center tutor, was pleased with her essay about making it onto the Review’s site. “I was extremely excited, it was the first time I was published.” She said.
Thompson said that she had worked very closely with the Review to edit the essay so that it would eventually would be posted, and the fact that she aspires to be a publisher she notes really put this as a good learning experience.
“It was fun because I was happy hearing feedback on my essay and being able hone in my knowing it was going to get seen by a larger audience” she said.
Thompson said her essay was about Moroccan author Tahar Benjelloun and French philosopher Henri Bergson, and how they talk about the idea of having “two selves.”
