High school students start literary arts magazine

Posted 8/21/12

HONESDALE, PA — When students at Honesdale High School displayed interest in starting a literary arts magazine, English teacher Jason Macey jumped at the opportunity to begin a creative writing …

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High school students start literary arts magazine

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HONESDALE, PA — When students at Honesdale High School displayed interest in starting a literary arts magazine, English teacher Jason Macey jumped at the opportunity to begin a creative writing class with a curriculum that includes creating a journal.

“This really is something that shows the response that administration has to genuine student interest first and foremost,” Macey said. The class began this year and the students recently put out the second issue of Midnight Fridge. On Tuesday, January 20 they held a launch party at The Cooperage at which students read their writing from the journal and celebrated with pizza.

The magazine features poetry, creative writing, art and photography. It is professionally printed and bound, and Macey is proud of the look of the magazine. “We’re getting a lot right with presentation,” he said, “and it doesn’t look at all like a high school journal, it looks at least like a college journal.” Each issue of Midnight Fridge has a theme, and the second issue’s theme is “Death.” Macey said he likes to “kill taboos” with the themes.

As for the title, Macey said, “We actually free-wrote titles. We then offered up favorites and voted. Midnight Fridge won (I think it has to do with everybody loving a midnight fridge raid, and the bit of mystique the name has), beating out Tropical Concrete and Mouse Trumpeteers.”

The creative writing class meets every day, and sometimes the students even work after to school to get the magazine finished. Macey and his students do all of the work in putting together Midnight Fridge, which he says, “is a tremendous amount of work and the kids to a great job of stepping up and really being involved with setting up the journal, putting all the pieces in, making sure it’s correctly formatted, all of those important things.” Macey said that even though the students may go through “high and lows” or experience writers’ block, they always support each other. “I’m not the only one helping them through these challenges; they’re helping one another. That is just incredible stuff there,” Macey said.

The magazine also has an online presence, and Macey said that even though they don’t have their own domain name, when you type “midnight fridge” into a Google search their website comes up first (I checked; it really does.) The domain name is maceyjason.wix.com/midnight-fridge and it includes most of the work seen in the print journal.

Macey is “very excited to see where this is going to go” and said they already have the year planned out, including the theme for the fourth issue, which is “Home,” and will involve the community. “It’s vital that these students are given this outlet,” Macey said.

There are copies of the journal at the school, but there are also several local business partners in Honesdale that carry it. They are Letterhead Comics, Maud Alley; Scarfalloto’s Towne House Diner, Main Street; Arts for Him, Main Street; Camp Umpy’s, Main Street; and the Wayne County Public Library (they have one copy that people can read, and they will let the school know if anyone is interested in purchasing through them).

“The culture was already in place; the value of the arts was already in place,” Macey said of Honesdale High School. He also thanks the high school’s art department, especially photography teacher Stacey Stone. “Without that kind of consistent intention and work that our art department has done, we wouldn’t have the product that we have,” Macey said. “We have phenomenal art work in there as well, and that’s something that really makes it special.”

It’s clear that there are some talented and passionate student writers at Honesdale High School. “There’s an incredible amount of power to these young writers’ voices,” Macey said, “And it is just a phenomenal outlet that I am extremely proud to be part of it.”

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