In the 1890s, Jesse Lynch Williams 1892 and Booth Tarkington 1893 not only edited the Nassau Literary Magazine but also held a Coffee House literary club that made poetry and prose an integral part of campus culture.
What followed was a Golden Age of literature when work of F. Scott Fitzgerald '17 and Edmund Wilson '16 filled the magazine's pages.
About a century later, the current editors of the Lit are attempting to resurrect the same kind of spirit through their own open mic nights in the Murray-Dodge cafe.
The events have been organized to promote a stronger literary culture, which has diminished since the days of Fitzgerald. The Lit, the oldest publication on campus, and Kruller, a six-year-old and less traditional upstart, have been faced with financial difficulties. Budget constraints, small staff size, turnover and little publicity have hampered their growth.
"[Literary magazines] are not selling because the students have no interest in poetry, do not believe in it, do not care about it," English professor Thomas Roche GS '58 said.
The editors recognize a declining student interest in literary magazines and have taken steps toward trying to draw them back.
Kruller is organizing an open mic night at Terrace Club tonight, and the Lit's event last Wednesday drew about 30 people.
Both magazines have far-reaching goals.
"The main purpose is getting people together who are interested in literary endeavors," said Kate Benson '03, coeditor of the Lit.
The Lit
Founded in 1842 as a monthly, the Lit's look, style and content have evolved throughout its long history. The issues of Fitzgerald's days were filled with poetry and prose, much like contemporary issues, but also contained book reviews and editorials opposing war.
By the 1940s, photographs and illustrations began to fill the pages. The number of issues had also dropped to six per year.
Reading through past issues, one finds a common theme — each editor in succession desperately tried to appeal to a wider audience. In 1931, the editorial board wrote, "Our chief aim is to publish a magazine calculated to appeal to undergraduates as a whole and not to a limited few."
These sentiments echo those of the current editors.
"Our mission is twofold: to feel pride about the history of the magazine and to give it a contemporary feel for today's audience," said Ibby Caputo '03, coeditor of the Lit.
The magazine's financial trouble is nothing new. In 1978, editor Sara Laschover wrote that the magazine had to cut down its issue size because it simply could not afford to print a larger work.
With about 80 people on its email list and a new business department, the group is trying to increase publicity. By Sunday night's deadline, 120 students had submitted more than 400 pieces of poetry, prose and art.
One 150-page hardcover issue will be published in the spring, instead of the two smaller soft-cover magazines produced each semester in the past.
To revive the prestige of the past, this year's edition will be a Fitzgerald commemorative issue featuring his past Lit works alongside submissions of prose, poetry, and art from current students.
Kruller
The founders of Kruller wrote in March 1997 that "too many vastly talented writers were expressing little or no interest in presenting their work to their peers through Princeton's well-established literary venues."
To that end, their purpose was to create a magazine that was less focused on "images" and more on content.
On a much smaller scale than the Lit, Kruller receives about two to four submissions each week and has a 10-member staff from a diverse set of majors, as opposed to the Lit, whose editors are mostly English concentrators.
In the 350 copies the group publishes each semester, traditional literary magazine pieces are juxtaposed with "quirky" submissions like AOL Instant Message conversations and math proofs.
"We accept everything as long as it is good," Kamanda said. "We are not fulfilling any academic standards."
He does not seem to mind that only a small number of students work on literary magazines at the University.
"There is something to be said with keeping it in the family," he said. "We are writing for ourselves and for the people who are submitting."
The Future
Both Kruller and the Lit are working to create a closer and stronger community of literary writers.
"There is no competition between the literary magazines on campus," Benson said. "There is a network of understanding of the challenges we all face between the publications."
Frank Quinn, a recent graduate of Notre Dame who now works at the Princeton University Press, is about to add another magazine to the mix.
He wants to start a poetry magazine that would provide another outlet for student writers.
Three weeks ago, he put fliers up around campus to start a creative writing workshop. About a dozen undergraduates are now meeting two times a week to share and critique poetry.
Eventually, they will form the literary selection committee for the yet untitled magazine which will come out this spring, Quinn said.
"I really think there is an interest in what I am taking up," Quinn said. "There are a lot of excellent poets on campus who have not put their stuff out yet as well as poets denied from editorial positions."
Humanities Council lecturer John McPhee '53, a frequent contributor to the literary magazines of his day, said in an email, "[The literary magazines] were a feast of opportunity to publish things, and on or about June 1 of senior year the cupboard went bare. I hope that in various ways plenty of outlets will continue to exist indefinitely wherein undergraduate writers can get the experience of seeing themselves in print."
But the ever resourceful alumni have just created a monthly online literary magazine called the Princeton Independent to share their work to combat the "bare cupboard."
"It was but a few months ago that a member of the formidable Princeton Writers Group on TigerNet suggested that Princeton needed more to feed the intellectual life of its alumni," Eric Lubell '76 wrote on the magazine's website.
And with that, the latest Princetonian literary endeavors were born.
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