The Young West – USU’s new zine

Nate Hardy, a senior at Utah State University, is making a splash in the Logan, Utah art scene with his new literary zine, The Young West. The Young West launched on Feb. 27, in the Logan Library Bridger Room after Hardy performed at Helicon West, an open-mic reading series held in Logan.

Unlike a traditional literary magazine, The Young West is a zine. A zine is like a traditional printed literary magazine but is much shorter and smaller. On average, the typical zine is between eight-by-five inches or slightly larger. The Young West wants to showcase art, flash fiction, flash nonfiction and poetry. 

Hardy has been advertising it within USU’s Ray B. West Building in the hope to gather more attention from other English undergraduates. 

“I’m really excited for the event,” said Faith Whiting, an English undergraduate, “it should be a really good thing and I’m excited for the zine.” 

All the pieces in the zine are handpicked by Hardy himself, as he has experience working as an editor for the university’s undergraduate literary magazine, Sink Hollow. He is the managing editor of the poems accepted into the magazine.  

Hardy wants to focus on the shorter pieces of writing so he can fill the zine with as much work as possible. Unlike most zines, The Young West is only focused on the Logan art scene and will likely use Submittable, a submissions management software, as a way to accept submissions from local Logan residents. 

“I started the magazine for the community,” Hardy said. “Logan is a little art hub and poetry capital of the west. I want people to flock to our town for art.” 

The Logan art scene is known for being the host of the recording studio Whysound, Helicon West and USU’s undergraduate literary magazine, Sink Hollow. The city is also home to the nationally renowned poet May Swenson.

The first issue of the zine is filled with words from many local professors. Some previously published professors featured in the zine are Ben Gunsberg, Paul Crumbley and Logan poet laureate, Shanan Ballam.

“I’d like to see as many community members represented as possible,” Ballam said. “I’d like to see diverse perspectives.” 

Ballam is also trying to represent community members through her own website where Logan residents can submit poems to be displayed in an online anthology. Ballam wants the more diverse side of Logan to be published in the zine, so many of the unique perspectives unknown to the public are displayed. 

Ballam’s excitement is mirrored by the other professors published in the zine. 

“It really does create an opportunity venue for a range of artists to appear together,” Professor Paul Crumbly said. “And that’s one of the nice things too is that we have a community. But the artists in the community often work in isolation. And so to have some of the painters work with some of the poets is really nice.”

Crumbly also expressed excitement over The Young West connecting the communities of USU and Logan.

“In a university town like this, often the arts are centered in the university,” Crumbly said. And we have other arts operating in Logan, too. But this is a nice bridge between the university and the community.”

Hardy will be selling copies of the zine for $5. Although the zine has several community backers, Hardy said he needs additional funding to keep the magazine going strong.  

—lexyroberts97@gmail.com