The Future of Toyon

I imagine the future of Toyon includes more genres than are currently featured. The new environmental justice section added this year could become a great addition to Toyon’s multilingual, creative, inviting space. I would love to see a more broad environmental category that includes writings about nature, the world around us, and the built and natural environments, not just environmental justice. That could be really interesting and draw from writers in more disciplines.

My biggest recommendation for future staff members is to formulate your understanding of Toyon’s role at HSU quickly in the beginning of the semester so that you can focus on the goals of your position.

When the next issue of Toyon is released in the Spring, I think it may be beneficial to have a theme for the party other than just the release in order to generate more interest in what Toyon does/is. I know that highlighting the new environmental justice section could generate interest from the environmental studies, geography, native American studies, and critical race and gender studies programs (and potentially more), both from students and professors.

I think connecting with local bookstores and asking them to sell copies of the Toyon for split profit may be a way to improve the circulation of our magazine. We may be able to sell them at a low cost and still give the store some small percentage of the proceeds in order to make it worth their while. That could also be a way for Toyon to generate extra income for the next year’s print or for the release party.

We should continue to table in the quad, create radio broadcasts, and perhaps get the Lumberjack to write about the release. I think Toyon’s biggest problem right now is that not many people know about it or what it is. When my academic advisor told me about the Toyon class, I thought is was only open to English majors and that I wouldn’t have many skills to contribute, but as it turns out Toyon fosters both self and collective growth, and the various perspectives from different majors was a great addition to the team. I would suggest talking to advisors throughout the humanities to see which programs are willing to make Toyon an option for their majors, and asking professors to pitch Toyon as a potential class for their students. It also might be beneficial to ask the library to suggest that students take the Toyon class at the end of their writing workshops, especially those that focus on editing, publishing, and professionalization, and to market Toyon as a class/internship. These kinds of things will spread the word about Toyon and get people interested, and then potentially increase circulation and the number of people reading the new volume of Toyon around campus after its release.

~ Ciera