The Peal, Auspex, and Owl & Spade: The Publications of Wilson
Watson Jones | September 8, 2022
Willow Solomon
Foster working in the Writing Studio.
The Peal, Auspex, and Owl & Spade publications are integral parts of the Warren Wilson College (WWC) academic and creative community, which cover a wide range of interests and provide students with practical publishing experience.
Auspex is an academic and literary publication that showcases the capstone work of WWC students. Established in 2012, the undergraduate journal publishes capstone projects from several different fields of study, including math, science, gender studies, sociology and anthropology.
Last year, the Writing Studio crew responsible for the production and editing of Auspex faced a unique challenge: adapting to the first ever hiatus in the journal’s history since its creation in 2012. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the 2021 edition and pushed the Auspex team to compile submissions from multiple years into a 2022 edition.
“It was a bit difficult in the sense that you have to have a cohesive theme, but compiling pieces from several different years provided a common thread of resilience,” said Rowan Berry-Foster, a Writing Studio crew member. “Noah Hoyle’s introduction [to the 2022 edition] does a good job explaining it. It was technically difficult, but thematically cohesive.”
For seniors looking to publish their capstone work, keep an eye out for the annual call for submissions over email or check in the back of any Auspex publication for details on how to submit online. A recommendation from a student's capstone advisor is the only submission requirement.
Berry-Foster recalled that the piece titled “Exploring Mathematics with Knitting” by Aquilla Sellew was a particularly fascinating entry in the most recent edition.
The Peal magazine is a student-run undergraduate literary magazine published annually in the spring. It publishes a wide variety of original material written by the WWC community, including poetry, fiction, art, drama and creative nonfiction.
Founded in 2005 by the creative writing department, the publication now exists as a class taught by creative non-fiction professor Alysia Sawchyn.
“With an undergraduate literary magazine, it exists for the students,” Sawchyn said.
The students enrolled in the spring semester class oversee the magazine's production, gaining publishing skills through applied experience.
“I think it's more valuable for students to self-direct and explore what they want to do,” Sawchyn said. “I really think I'm there mostly to be like, okay, here's some basic parameters. And I'm here to answer questions and like, we can troubleshoot and whatever. But yeah, I'm trying to just make space for students to develop professional skills.”
Willow Solomon
Callahan and Mary Ellen Davis presenting an issue of Owl & Spade
Though the class is currently open to all students during the spring, Sawchyn is considering moving it to the fall semester in future years.
The Owl and Spade is an annual magazine that covers major campus news and accomplishments from the past year and typically highlights certain faculty, staff, students and alumni in dedicated feature pieces. It is published in tandem by the advancement office, responsible for fundraising, alumni and community relations and the enrollment and marketing team, commonly known as the admissions office.
Director of Donor Relations, Erika Orman Callahan, has worked for the Owl and Spade team since 2019 and is one of the executive editors for the publication.
“Our primary audience is alumni and donors to the college, but, of course, [the Owl and Spade] is for all of our community members — students, faculty and staff can certainly enjoy it as well,” Orman Callahan said.
Because Owl and Spade is created annually by WWC faculty, its production schedule looks different from the other two student-run publications.
“We work on it pretty much all year,” Orman Callahan said. “It usually goes out around October and we’re usually working on next year’s magazine starting in December.”
Previous editions of the Auspex undergraduate capstone journal, the Owl and Spade and the Peal magazines are available on the MyWWC website. New editions of the two magazines are distributed around campus when they come out. Copies of the most recent edition of Auspex are available in the library.