Tech Students Receive National Honors For Campus Magazine

A Tennessee Tech student-edited magazine titled “The Iris Review” rated excellent at a national English teachers contest.

Assistant English Professor Erin Hoover teaches a Literary Magazine Editing class where students learn to edit, design, and market the Review. She said the magazine includes student work as well as submissions from across the Upper Cumberland.

“We aim to publish the best writing and art that is submitted to us, and it’s really, it’s very high quality,” Hoover said. “So I think that everyone should be proud that we’ve produced a magazine that’s on par with really some other very fine publications across the country.”

Hoover said the school formerly had a student-led magazine titled “Home Spun.” She said Tech decided to start “The Iris Review” and got funding to publish the magazine when it took off. The publication received an “excellent” ranking at The National Council of Teachers of English REALM contest.

Hoover said the great thing about poetry, fiction, and other creative writing is that it can be studied at a university, but it is accessible to everyone. She said that accessibility has been a great resource for her students who get to see exemplary work from writers within the Tech community and outside of it.

“That’s how people see writing and art is through publication and these journals,” Hoover said. “So, I think that drives the students as well, and I know it drives me to be able to produce that work and publish what’s some of the work that’s going on at our university and in our community.”

Hoover said the class has been an extremely valuable experience for the students as well as they look forward to starting a career.

“Those are the kind of skills that they’ll need in their first jobs, and to do that kind of activity at school in a practicum, it’s really kind of a safe environment where you have the support of a teacher and your fellow students, rather than just jumping into your first job,” Hoover said.

She said the quality of the publication speaks to the strength of the Tennessee Tech English Department, the only Tennessee school to be recognized at the contest.

“Tennessee Tech is a really great place to study English and writing,” Hoover said. “We have a really robust program in English.”