The Phoenix is the (supposedly) annual student literary journal produced at the University of Waterloo. I was responsible for the 2004 edition of the Phoenix. A link to the online version and a discussion of the project are available here.
Click here to see the 2004 Phoenix
The Phoenix used to be an annual student publication at the University of Waterloo that showcased poetry, short fiction, and artwork produced by UW students. The 2000 edition of the Phoenix was included in my frosh kit when I started at UW, and as soon as I opened it, I knew that it was something I wanted to contribute to.
After a couple of years of fairly significant effort (read: nagging), I finally managed to produce an edition for 2004, only to discover that all of my funding proposals had been assassinated, which made a print version impossible. Undaunted, and with the aid of my good friend Calvin Mok, an online version was thrown together (see link above). While it doesn’t have the sensuality and the environmental impact of a print version, I’m still quite happy with how it turned out.
I was responsible for the design and implementation of that awful cover, so you can blame me for that. I was lucky enough to secure the talent of a couple of former students to do the rest of the artwork.
While I’m blaming myself for flaws in the Phoenix, I should also confess that I did something very tacky; I published some of my own work in it under the pretty thin guise of an ‘Anonymous’ author. The last piece, ‘Melissa: In Life’, is mine. This is definitely not acceptable behaviour from the editor of a publication. Still, though, I think it rounds off the whole package quite nicely, and we did have one blank page remaining when we were still planning on a print edition that had to be filled…
Producing the Phoenix was an exercise in tenacity, and helped teach me how to effectively beg for resources. It’s a shame that it died out the way it did, because there are loads of talented people at UW.
But, as the name implies, I’m certain that someone else will throw together a new version of the Phoenix someday…
[Edit: As of April 2008, I've discovered that the old official Phoenix site has been dismantled, so I'm hosting it myself now.]
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