Masthead
A note on the submission review process:
Submissions to Rock & Sling are read by undergraduate students at Whitworth University. Materials screened with a yes are passed to genre meetings, which are led by trained student assistant editors and faculty genre editors. Pieces that move through those meetings reach monthly packet meetings where they are considered by the faculty editors and trained assistant editors.
Student editors enroll in a rigorous course in content and developmental editing and beginning in fall 2020, a training in diversity, equity, and inclusion. All faculty editors have similar training, to ensure from beginning to end our screening process is fair and equitable, and all editors and readers are aware of how their biases factor into the decision-making process.
Editorial Staff
Editor-in-Chief
Thom is an associate professor in the English department at Whitworth University and teaches a variety of creative writing, literature, and publishing and editing courses. His poems have appeared in Ascent, Redivider, Smartish Pace, Sugar House Review, and elsewhere. His books include A Visitor’s Guide to North Dakota, No Secrets to Sell, and most recently, What the Sky Lacks.
The work I prefer rarely takes a single form. It is often work that blurs traditional lines, either culturally or structurally. I want the magazine to embrace complexity, to be afraid of nothing, to push our understanding of ourselves and the ways we think about literature. I like art that takes risks, but still remembers to be good art.
Managing Editor
I love to see stories that grapple with complex theological issues in an exciting/fantastical way. Any story that expounds upon human experience or that explores the philosophical “Other” aligns with the kind of work that I want to see.
Megan NecocheaNonfiction Editor
Megan is a senior English student at Whitworth University. She is majoring in Writing Studies and minoring in Editing and Publishing. She has worked on Rock & Sling for two years as both a reader and as an assistant editor. Megan is also the editor-in-chief of Script, Whitworth’s campus literary magazine. She has had her writing appear in Script.
I appreciate pieces that use creative approaches to structure that allow meaning-making to be a process of discovery. I also seek pieces with language that can do the work of carrying coherent narratives alongside employing strong poeticism and musicality.
Kate Vaccaro Fiction Editor
Kate is a third-year English literature student with an editing and publishing minor. She has been a reader for Rock and Sling since her second semester at Whitworth and has loved every minute of it. Being in this position has ignited in her a love of literary journals alongside the already present love of books. Kate also has a passion for writing and wishes she had more time to devote to it since she is a full-time student.
I enjoy pieces that show how unique individuals respond to the situations that arise in their lives. Even if a character seems mundane and seems to be in a mundane situation, there is always the possibility for an out-of-the-ordinary reaction. Grounded and realized characters can act weird when they are faced with something new. Stories like this show how complex the human mind is and reflects how no two experiences of a thing are the same.
Poetry Editor
Elisa is a Mexican American poet and student from Spokane, Washington. She attends Whitworth University, where she studies English and Political Science, with a specialty in editing and creative writing. She feels most alive when she’s in class, swimming in the ocean, loving her people, or daydreaming about the future.
I admire poems that find a way to reinvent even the most universal human experiences. That is, poetry that surprises me with fresh perspective and gorgeous, succinct language no matter the subject at hand. I prefer poems that attempt to make sense of life as the poet knows it, that come unarmed with assumptions or bias about how the world ought to look.
About Whitworth University
Since 1890, Whitworth has held fast to its founding mission of providing “an education of mind and heart” through rigorous intellectual inquiry guided by dedicated Christian scholars. Recognized as one of the top regional colleges and universities in the West, Whitworth University has an enrollment of 2,700 students and offers 55 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. In recent years, Whitworth has enjoyed record levels of student enrollment and retention, the strongest financial position in the university’s history, and increased external visibility. Whitworth University’s 200-acre campus of red-brick buildings and tall pines offers a beautiful, inviting and secure learning environment. More than $83 million in campus improvements have been made over the past decade, including a new center for the visual arts, a landmark general academic building, three new residence halls and several outdoor athletics facilities. In all of these endeavors, the university seeks to advance its founder’s mission of equipping students to “honor God, follow Christ and serve humanity.”