The Icarian, Central’s literary magazine, was awarded The Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines (REALM) First Class by the National Council of Teachers of English for their 2023 issue.
The REALM program publicly recognizes excellent literary magazines from middle schools, high schools and universities.
Faculty advisor John Hayward attributes the success of the magazine to several factors: the growing number of students who work on The Icarian, the quality of writing and art and the publication’s well-curated design.
“[This award] is a validation of the students’ work; we really put a lot into it,” Hayward said.
The Icarian publishes the best of student poetry, short stories and all kinds of other genres of writing and art, showcasing student submissions from across the year.
“What the staff did uniquely last year is the pairing of pieces that worked really well,” Hayward said. “So the flow was very nice. And it all starts with a cover that was really engaging. From start to finish it was just a solid magazine.”
According to Hayward, despite a wide range of art mediums and writing styles, each year a theme naturally develops.
“It was amazing to win and a lot of it was due to last year’s Editor-in-Chief Kalani Staudacher,” said junior Michael Liu, who now leads the publication. “She did a great job with it and so did the rest of our team. If you combine everybody’s hours, we probably spent 100 hours working on [the publication].”
The club meets from September through May, evaluating what’s going to go in the magazine, approving pieces and designing the issue.
“There’s a strategy in magazines of where to put your strong anchor pieces and where to dip in between so there’s an intentional flow to it,” Hayward said. “But there’s a day somewhere in March, where everything is laid out on the table, all the written pieces, all the art pieces in a step back and go, this is it.”
Liu believes spreading awareness of the magazine helps make a better publication.
“Knowing submissions are open, we encourage people to get their voice out there because it’s not us making the magazine it’s everybody that submits,” Liu said.
