Literary magazine garners top honors
OTHS publication one of only seven in state recognized
BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer

Ocean Township High School students produce the school's award-winning literary magazine, "Afterglow."

OCEAN TOWNSHIP - Each year township high school students work together to publish the student literary magazine "Afterglow."

Their efforts have resulted in recognition for the magazine before, but the 2006 issue, according to the magazine's adviser, has been ranked "highest" among similar school publications.

"In the past, the magazine has been recognized," said Susan Reese, a creative writing teacher at the high school and adviser of the magazine since 1984.

"But [last year's magazine] ranked among the highest overall," she said.

"Afterglow" has been selected to receive the rank of superior by the American Scholastic Press and the Gold Award by Columbia Scholastic Press for excellence.

It is the sole school publication from the central New Jersey region rated superior and only seven schools statewide were recognized.

Along with these two prestigious awards, "Afterglow" has received annual acclaim as excellent by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) program to recognize excellence in student literary magazines.

"We have had a gold award in the past," Reese said, "But last year we received a silver from Colombia [Scholastic Press].

"This is a great honor," she said, adding, "We have never made quite a hat-trick, so-to-speak, before."

The magazine was first published at the school in 1968 and was called "The Gull," Reese said.

The name was changed several years after and the school has been publishing the magazine under the name "Afterglow" for more than 30 years, she said.

In the more than two decades that Reese has been overseeing the student-published magazine, she said she has seen it undergo many changes.

"In the beginning, it was published without color," Reese said, "and the typography was done by [an outside] company.

"It has evolved into being 100 percent created by the students."

A group of some 40 students belong to the after-school program and meet about once a week throughout the year to produce the publication at the end of the school year in June.

The magazine's content includes poetry, short stories, nonfiction essays and includes art.

"These kids love what they are doing,"

Reese said.

"The process, the camaraderie and just working through a problem and seeing it through completion.

"It's the pride they feel of seeing a finished project that is judged superior or excellent, that they find most rewarding," Reese said.

The work that appears in the magazine generally is created during the creative writing classes at the school, but any student at the school can submit a piece for the publication, Reese explained.

"I try to get the students to not write about typical teenage angst topics in order to offer more of a variety," Reese said.

"We have satires," she said. "And one year, someone wrote a story about a pack of love letters they found written by their father.

"They also write about global warming, hunger and other national interest topics," she said, adding, "And of course, the latest fads, like iPods and cell phones."

For the last several years, the magazine has been 62 pages long and includes about 50 pieces of literature and 25 pieces of art.

The student members of the magazine program act as the co-editors and editors-in-chief of each aspect of the magazine, according to Reese.

She explained that each student is responsible for various tasks in producing the magazine and any student can belong to the program.

The students choose what pieces will be published in the magazine, Reese said.

"As members read the articles and stories, they do not know who submitted them, so the pieces are chosen based on talent," she said.

It costs approximately $3,700 to publish "Afterglow" each year and the program receives some funding from the Board of Education, but Reese said it is not nearly enough.

"We raise money by presenting two coffeehouses throughout the year, where the kids can sing, play musical instruments or read poetry," she said. "It is another venue for them to display their talents."

Some 100 copies of "Afterglow" are printed and are sold at the school for $7 each.

Reese added that it costs approximately $37 to print one copy of the magazine.

"We try to make it a quality magazine with a lot of color," she said.

"The students really do an amazing job. They are a wiz on the computer and they find their own niche.

"They do it because they like it, and in the end they love showing off their work."