Faculty, students, and staff recently gathered to celebrate the publishing of the 51st issue of Pembroke Magazine.
The issue features writers from 13 states and abroad. The issue’s poetry ranges from narrative to lyric, from poems about birds and death, the accumulation of useless skills over a lifetime, and real mountains that explode.
The creative nonfiction portion features memoir essays about sexual awakening and grief, patterns of male violence and self-destruction, and the momentous passing of the Goodyear blimp over a small town.
The fiction portion includes realistic stories of love and danger, such as the story of a young college student risking her safety to hitchhike in semi-trucks across northern Arizona back to campus.
“I was pleased to share Pembroke Magazine's 51st issue with students, faculty, and the public,” said assistant English professor and Pembroke Magazine editor Peter Grimes. “The issue has something for everyone. As a North Carolina-based literary journal, Pembroke Magazine was honored to have North Carolina author David Joy read from his riveting novels as part of the event.”
Earlier in the day, Joy visited two creative writing classrooms. The students appreciated his straightforward takes on the writing life, and his subjects, which are the people and places of Jackson County, NC.
Joy is the author of three novels, Where All Light Tends to Go, The Weight of this World, and The Line that Held Us. His work also includes the memoir, Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman’s Journey.
The Weight of this World won the 2018 Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing from the Working-Class Studies Association.
Grimes credited senior journalism student intern Alex Smith with contributing to the magazine production. She assisted with her graphic design abilities, most notably in designing the striking cover to the current issue, as well as redesigning the magazine's website pembrokemagazine.com. Smith, who serves as co-web editor for the student newspaper, The Pine Needle, has helped invigorate Pembroke Magazine’s social media presence.
Published at UNCP, Pembroke Magazine has been printed annually since its founding in 1969.