On May 1, the staffs of Quilt and Respondez are holding an official release party celebrating the newest editions of their publications. On April 14, the 31st edition of the Quilt, a student managed literary art journal, will be distributed free of charge campus-wide.

In addition to hosting UT’s Open Mic Night’s, the print edition of the Quilt exhibits all forms of campus art’mdash;paintings, poetry, fiction, photography, sculptures and creative non-fiction make up the majority of submissions.

This year’s issue is about one hundred twelve pages long and features almost one hundred works of art. Derrick Austin, the Quilt’s Editor in Chief, said that this year, there was a ‘larger response from the visual arts students, so there’s far more artwork and color photography in it than in previous years. There’s also more fiction.’

To compile and select the final works for the Quilt was not an easy task. Austin said that Audrey Colombe, the Quilt’s staff advisor, helped him immensely.

‘Audrey’s been a supportive and guiding force during my first year as editor in chief.’ Despite all the work that being the Editor in Chief mandated, Austin said that overall, working for the Quilt ‘has been a great experience.’

‘We’ve had no major setbacks . . . everything’s run pretty smooth this year. It’s really been fun work for me’mdash;we’re just a bunch of hippies.’

Austin also had help from the Quilt’s other chief editors. The Art Editor this year was Laura Theobold and the Quilt Corner Editor was Kristin Pappas.

Austin’s favorite piece this year is a short story by Shannon Navarro, titled ‘The World’s Worst Disappearing Act.’

‘Shannon originally wrote the piece for a class. The assignment was to write a fable about a missing body part. Her piece is a funny, sunny little story about a girl who wakes up one morning and her vagina is missing . . . it’s hilarious.’

The release party will be in the plant 6pm in the Plant Hall Music Room. At the party, there will be food and beverage to enjoy along with readings from the Quilt. The staff of the Quilt encourages UT students to attend the event. According to Austin, a large turnout is expected. ‘Considering the crowd we get for our ‘Open Mics’, we should have a great turnout for the release.’

‘We want to give artists on campus a community to be a part of, while giving them a place to show their work.’

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