National Award to Knox Student Literary Magazine

Knox College's student literary magazine, Catch, has received a Pacemaker Award as one of the top college literary magazines in the nation, selected by the Associated Collegiate Press. The 2008 Pacemaker is the fourth national honor that Catch has won in the past six years.

The winning issue of Catch was published in Spring 2008. The editor in chief was Alice Holbrook, a 2008 Knox graduate from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

"It's nice to be recognized. We had an excellent editorial team and great submissions," Holbrook said. "I was mainly overseeing and organizing the ideas and material brought by the editorial staff. If anything stands out, I have to compliment our layout editor, Kari Lefevre. Her design ideas are really brilliant." Lefevre is a 2008 Knox graduate from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The faculty advisor for the winning issue was Gina Franco, assistant professor of English. "The design is elegant, understated in a way that makes the book a pleasure to hold and inviting to read," Franco said. "In addition to a superb design, the issue offers 180 pages of stellar work, and that's an impressive feat for any magazine -- including national literary publications that have professional authors and editors."

Associated Collegiate Press selected nine Pacemaker Awards in the literary magazine division this year. Awards were based on content, quality of writing and editing, photography, art and graphics, layout and design and overall concept. The other magazine winners included journals from Notre Dame, California Institute of Technology, and the University of Illinois. ACP also makes awards for college newspapers, yearbooks and on-line publications. The awards were presented at the recent ACP annual conference, October 29-November 2, in Kansas City.

Catch previously won Pacemaker Awards in 2003 and 2005, and the magazine was a Pacemaker finalist in 2004. Catch also won the 2003 National Collegiate Championship Literary Magazine Director's Prize, a competition sponsored by Associated Writing Programs.

Holbrook graduated from Knox in 2008 with College Honors in creative writing. She is currently completing a master of fine arts in fiction at Syracuse University. She said that her experience on the staff of Catch has made her more sensitive when responding to works written by fellow students.

"The obligation you have to your authors as the editor of a magazine, the need to please your readers and stay true to your authors' visions, has helped me be a better, more sensitive reader to my classmates' pieces," Holbrook said. "Even if it's just in a workshop, you can't compromise the author's vision."

Catch Spring 2008 Editors:
Editor in Chief: Alice Holbrook
Art Editors: Kathleen Beeson, Nick Kalmus, Gaia Nadie-Warner
Non-Fiction Editors: Geoff Brown, Leigh Abrams, Jessie DeFreest
Fiction Editor: Laura Zuber
Journalism Editors: Tanya Ferguson, Tom Fucoloro
Layout Editor: Kari Lefevre
Music Editor: Devin Day
Organizational Editors: Missy Kalbrener, Donald Rogers
Poetry Editors: Gail Aronson, Howard Friedman
Publicity Editor: Gaia Nadie-Warner
Theater Editor: Courtney Meaker
Web Editor: Graham Troyer-Joy