Printing and Production

Printing and producing the Toyon Literary Magazine is an incredibly complicated process that involves economic, political, and environmental decisions.

There is a rich history behind literary magazines. They have been the venue for marginalized groups to voice their opinions and spread knowledge when these groups were excluded from institutional production means. As author Len Fulton says, “the little magazines and small pressed of the decade enormously affected and, in turn were affected by, all the major social issues of the time: peace and war, race, education, censorship, explosion of underground papers; and later in the decade: ecology, Indian rights, Women’s and Gay Liberation and so forth”. Magazines have been a mechanism of social change and revolution, much the same as social media is used now.

That being said, printing magazines requires an incredible amount of resources. This includes the paper, ink, ink cartrages, glue/binding, the waste, the fossil fuels used in the printing machines and transportation of the raw resources used to make the book and of the finished books themselves. With that in mind, I think it is important for the Toyon staff to be conscious of the materials we use and the amount of volumes we decide to print. It is our responsibility to limit our publications where necessary in order to make the least possible negative environmental impact.

~ Ciera