Wor-Wic Community College in Salisbury recently hosted the 35th anniversary celebration of its creative arts journal, “Echoes & Visions,” with a coral jubilee, including a reception and poetry reading. The evening celebrated a major milestone as Wor-Wic has continually published a volume of creative writing and artwork annually since the first issue was published on a dot-matrix printer in 1989.
The issues include work selected by an editorial board of students and faculty who evaluate submissions and select the best work each year to be included for publication. From the humble beginnings in 1989, the magazine has developed significantly. These days, the issues are glossy trade bound volumes which are distributed around campus to students and faculty for free.
In the past 10 years, “Echoes & Visions” has won more than a dozen national awards from the American Scholastic Press Association, the Community College Humanities Association and the National Council of Teachers of English.
Mindful of National Poetry Month, nine Wor-Wic students and alumni who had been published in various issues over the past years shared their poems to a crowd of faculty, staff, students and community members. The featured readers included Robert Senesi, Tyree Price, Anna Conley, Rebecca Jones-Hochmuth, Brodie DeHart, Ryan McNiff, Waetina Tingle and Kim Vallejo. The event was also streamed online to additional audience members.
The evening showcased how Wor-Wic has always been a home for the humanities and the arts as faculty members, including Adam Tavel, professor of English, Melissa Reddish, associate professor of arts and humanities, and Charles Porter, arts and humanities department head and associate professor of developmental English, shared in reflections on the history of the magazine from its founding by Elinor Cubbage through to the future of the arts at Wor-Wic.
Those interested in supporting “Echoes and Visions” and the arts at Wor-Wic can donate to the Elinor Phillips Cubbage Endowment for the Arts by visiting www.worwic.edu and clicking “Donate.”
Attendees of the coral jubilee celebration of “Echoes & Visions,” the Wor-Wic Community College creative arts journal, listen to a reading.
