The Mangrove is excited to start again on its great, arduous process to present the world the best creative endeavors the students of the University of Florida have to give. It's that time of year again: kick-start your art and show us what you have. But we can't do this alone -- we need some help! For those of you who'd love creative works but are more interested in the process of putting together a literary magazine, we encourage you to join our team. We need advertisers, designers, editors, fundraisers, photographers and possibly more. It's a great way to learn and gain hands-on experience.

Announcements

By this meeting, we will have the submissions to start reviewing and we would like to forming our editing and design groups. The Spring is when the Mangrove becomes more active and does what it loves: editing and design. We will discuss this meeting about our different groups and what to look forward to next semester.

See past announcements.

Last Meeting's Minutes

Last meeting was a short briefing.

See past meeting minutes.

---

Why you should be part of The Mangrove

The Mangrove gives students the opportunity to learn the publishing field as an undergraduate. We are a small organization, which means that club members can be involved in every aspect of the publishing process. Whatever you want to learn about putting together a magazine, we'll show you how to do it.

Our Schedule

Our meetings this semester will be held on Thursday nights, at 7:20. Meeting times and dates will be announced on the website and the listserv. The Mangrove holds meetings every other week. If you have class this semester and cannot make the Thursday night meetings, pay attention to the e-mails so you can keep track of what we're doing on staff. The meeting nights will change in the spring.

In case you missed the meeting or miss future meetings

I'll be sending out e-mails after the meetings with updates, so don't worry if you can't make a meetings. Of course, we hope that you come to all of the meetings, but we understand that things come up. If you are going to miss a meeting, or did miss one, don't worry about e-mailing me to tell me about it. I'll send out the updates to the entire listserv. Meetings in the fall tend to be short, because I want to give everyone the information they need and let them have a rocking Thursday evening. In the spring, the meetings will be more time consuming, as we'll be trying to put the magazine together.

Can I submit and be on staff?

The Mangrove does not allow staff members to submit to the magazine. We encourage staff members to submit to Tea Literary Magazine if they are interested in being published. This is because we want to give every student an equal opportunity to be published in the magazine.

What's the difference between The Mangrove and Tea?

From what we can tell, there are two major differences between the two literary magazines. First, The Mangrove is a more design-focused magazine. We have staff photographers and a theme each year, and we do creative layouts (check our the last issue). Second, The Mangrove is a smaller staff and a collective, which means more of a chance for you to get involved and have your voice be heard on the staff.

Can I be on the Tea staff and on The Mangrove staff?

Even though the English department heads like to advertise that Tea Literary Magazine has a rivalry with The Mangrove, we hold that this is not the case. The University of Florida is a huge campus, and there is room for two literary magazines. Mangrove staff members can definitely work on Tea. The only reason most students do not choose to do this is scheduling conflicts. Unfortunately, the Mangrove officers cannot be held responsible for coordinating our schedule with Tea's schedule.

What positions are available in The Mangrove?

For the fall semester we are looking for administrative and PR assistance. We need help applying for a budget next year, as well as finding new and creative ways to get the magazine's name around campus. If you are interested in helping with PR or administrative business, e-mail Amanda.

We are also looking for staff photographers for this semester. If you look at the last issue, you will notice that all of the images were from our photographer Ensley. Ensley will still be involved in the magazine, but we hope to build a staff this year. This means that the photography staff will set up one or two photo shoots together for the magazine. If you are interested in the staff photography position, e-mail Amanda.

The rest of the staff will be made up of general staff members this semester. This means that everyone will be helping generate the submissions (poetry, nonficion, fiction, and art). Responsibilities of general staff members this semester are flyering and and tabling around campus, as well as being involved in the decisions we make about the magazine during our biweekly meetings.

In the spring semester everything will change. General staff members can choose to become staff editors and work on submission selection and editing within one or more of the categories (poetry, nonficion, fiction, and art), or they can choose to work on the design staff (we'll teach you InDesign CS3, so no experience is necessary), or they can work on administrative duties, or they can assist in publishing, OR they can help organize the release party. [All of these responsibilities are not exclusionary. Some staff members from last year worked in every area.] There is also the option of general staff members applying for head editor positions. We break the editing and selection process into four different categories (again, art, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction) and have a head editor for each of these sections. The head editor will be in charge of organizing their editing staff, leading the editing meetings, and doing the final copy edit for their section. The head editor positions available in the spring are fiction, nonfiction, and art. If you are interested in these positions, we'll be holding interviews in the spring.

I still have a question...

If you still have some unanswered or specific questions, please feel free to send Amanda Justice some correspondence. She can be reached at MangroveAmanda@gmail.com or look her up on Facebook.

Contact the Staff

If you'd like to get involved with The Mangrove or have a question, please contact ...

Regarding design, ... Mary Mancone.

Regarding photography, ... Ensley Gilchrist.

Regarding editing, ... Ashley Gallagher.

Regarding administration, fundraising, party planning, or other ... Amanda Justice.