Humber Literary Review celebrates 10-year publishing anniversary 

Co-editor of The Humber Literary Review David Miller, says it feels good to be celebrating their success despite the odds. 

“ I can’t believe it’s been 10 years, to be honest. But it actually feels really good because I think it’s really challenging for literary art magazines and journals to thrive in this day and age. We were lucky early on to have a lot of institutional support from the English department, the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and from Humber College as a whole, which I think really gave us the foundation to succeed,” he says.

The HLR is a peer-reviewed literary and art journal that publishes written work from both emerging and established writers through an open submission process. They accept submissions from writers outside the country and all across Canada. 

Working with the Faculty of Media, Creative Arts and Design, the HLR also helps curate art for each issue, so each issue features one artist whose work is featured on the cover.

Miller has been working at HLR since 2014 working as a fiction editor, and as co-editor since 2019. The HLR will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. Friday, Oct.18 at the Glad Day Bookshop, 499 Church St. in Toronto.

The event will include short readings, just about three minutes long for each reader. There will be 10 readers over the course of the evening each representing one year of the magazine’s history. 

Miller says HLR is looking for unique and authentic voices. 

“We have a really diverse editorial team who have really diverse tastes themselves. So we don’t have a sort of theme or one particular style we’re looking for in the HLR. We really pride ourselves on publishing from very traditional short stories to very experimental poetry, and everything in between,” he says.

Miller is also the program coordinator and professor in the English Department of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Humber.

He says HLR doesn’t give any preferential treatment to Humber graduates when going through submissions.

“We don’t specifically save space for Humber graduates, but Humber just happens to produce a lot of great writers through our various programs. So, we just happen to produce a lot of really good writers in Canada, they know us, and so they often do feel comfortable submitting to us,” he says.

Co-editor Eufemia Vandetti says it feels fantastic to be celebrating alongside Miller. 

“We started as co-editors just before the pandemic, and we had a steep learning curve. There was a while there where we were publishing the magazine, but having to go to campus under pandemic restrictions to get the magazine out because we also do the mail-out ourselves. It’s remarkable, we’ve done it for five years and it flew by,” she says. 

Similarly to Miller, Vandetti has been part of the HLR collective since 2014. She previously held the role of essays editor. 

Vandetti says one of the most joyful parts of working as co-editor is organizing their annual launch. 

“Once a year in the summer, HLR will host a double issue launch, and then we’ll invite writers from the GTA who were published in our Fall/ Winter and Spring/ Summer issues. Having local poets and writers read and celebrate the issues with us, and getting to hear the writing in the writer’s original voice is always the best part,” she says. 

Vandetti teaches writing both at Humber College and at the University of Guelph. 

She says students shouldn’t let fear prevent getting their written work out there.

“Living your life through fear means living a reduced life. You cannot let the inner critic rule your life. You have to let the part of you that is willing to share your opinion, share your voice, share your stories, with the world,” she says. 

Although HLR doesn’t regularly publish student work, Arrival Magazine does. Arrival is a new online literary magazine led by a collective of students in Humber College’s Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing program. 

Vandetti says these outlets are vital to give students credits for their resumes.

“Giving them these experiences is vital, the real-world experience of what it’s like to work on somebody else’s writing to make it better. All of these opportunities are what education is about. There should be more of them. They should be really available, because it’s almost like having an internship,” she says. 

 Learn more about the HLR and upcoming issues at: 

https://humberliteraryreview.com