Student voices across the state celebrated at first annual Nighthawk Review Night
From St. George to Tremonton, students across Utah State University statewide campuses have the opportunity for their voice to be heard in USU Eastern’s literary journal, “The Nighthawk Review.” The journal had its first celebration night on April 2.
Jason Olsen, associate professor of English at USU Eastern, is the faculty adviser of the journal.
“I started in 2008. Back then, it was called the College of Eastern Utah,” Olsen said. “I had a colleague give me old issues, and there was one from the 1970s.”
According to Olsen, the issue from the 1970s was called “Rainbow World.”
“Which is fantastic, but I’m glad we changed it,” Olsen said. “There’s a deep history and connection to USU Eastern with this journal, and I think that’s important.”
The journal accepts submissions of original pieces of writing, including short stories, poems and plays, from any student taking a statewide class.
“I also open it up to Logan students who take classes statewide,” Olsen said. “I get to work with wonderful students in my classes, and I don’t want to exclude them.”
According to Olsen, much of the journal is run by students across the statewide campuses.
“My student editors are the ones going through the material,” Olsen said. “They’re going through and looking for something that feels professional and carefully written, something provocative, like this is something that is going to grab my eye in a certain way.”
Olsen said the team gets a large variety of submissions from students in different fields of study and locations.
“It’s really diverse,” Olsen said. “Even though we’re spread out over all of these campuses, we are still able to create this really cool thing.”
The celebration event took place in the Library and Learning Commons at USU Eastern.
Michael Harris, head of the USU Eastern and statewide library services, said they were happy to house the event.
Harris said the inspiration for hosting the Nighthawk Review night was having a counterpart to the fall local authors night.
According to Harris, this used to be one of the only events put on by the library. One of Harris’ goals since being hired has been to increase the amount of events the library hosts.
Harris said part of this goal is by shifting one of the front spaces of the library to a lounge.
“We actually just put in a little coffee shop for students,” Harris said. “We want kind of a poetry night vibe. We have the coffee, and we have the nice, comfy seating. Maybe just turn down the lights and get a little jazz music going.”
Harris said he hopes the area will solidify as a lounge as they increase the amount of readings at the library.
“I was trying to think of what would be a good event for the spring,” Harris said. “That’s when I came up with this idea of, ‘Well, we do this local author night that’s for someone off-campus. Wouldn’t it be cool to have, essentially, a night for the students to read works that they are publishing in The Nighthawk Review?’”
Since the event was going to happen before the publication of this year’s magazine, they decided to focus the event on past editions.
Olsen said the hope is next year’s celebration night will have the writers and editors of this year’s magazine read their work.
“This year, I invited several contributors to the journal to come and asked them to come prepared if they wanted to read something from it,” Olsen said. “Maybe the future will have an open mic night.”
Aimee Lauritsen is in the special collections and archives department at the USU Eastern library.
“When I took over the position, we only had one thing from our collection available digitally through the USU Digital Commons,” Lauritsen said. “It’s been my goal to try and get things more digitally accessible.”
Lauritsen said one of the collections she has been working on digitizing is literary journal.
“We felt like it was very important for us as the library to support our student publication,” Lauritsen said. “I’m pretty proud of the fact that we now do have the Nighthawk Review available online.”
Lauritsen said it has been rewarding to have past students excited to come back and see the work they had published in the archives.
“Life is hard once you’re no longer a student, and you don’t always get that opportunity again,” Lauritsen said. “What a neat way to go back and visit some of your accomplishments and see how much your thinking has changed.”
According to Lauritsen, when Harris had the idea to host the Nighthawk Review night, she was able to go through the digital archives and work with Olsen to reach out to past writers and editors of the magazine.
Lauritsen said she is excited for the future of the event and has hopes it will continue for many years to come.
“I think it’s so important to be starting a tradition,” Lauritsen said. “It’s a way to celebrate students when they are students.”
Harris said this night is an important step toward connecting USU Eastern with its community.
“Price is a very small town, and people act like this town doesn’t have a lot of events,” Harris said. “As an institution, we’re trying to connect campus to community. We’re trying to create a culture in Price where we can have these kinds of events.”
Lauritsen said the journal is important for not just USU Eastern students, but all of the statewide students.
“I think that it’s so important to remember that this is a statewide university and it affects many communities all over the state,” Lauritsen said. “How phenomenal is that?”
“It’s absolutely crucial to be able to have an outlet for students who sometimes feel like their voices don’t get heard,” Olsen said. “This is a wonderful place for students to get to have their voice heard and their work shared.”