The annual unveiling of the Lumen literary magazine occurred on April 25 before a packed Taylor Little Theatre, featuring several award winners for student works.
This year’s edition includes 108 works, 99 of which appear in the main publication.
The event was emceed by editors-in-chief Michael Mongera and Jacob Leach, both of whom saw their work featured prominently in this year’s edition.
Michael Núñez was announced as the winner of the prestigious P. Barry McAndrew Creative Writing Award for his short story entitled “How to Mess Around with a Latino, White, and Black Boy.”
Tessa Sayre received second place for her piece “Grandma’s Back Patio,” and Molly Kennedy received third place for her poem “Third Grade.”
Other award winners included Lauren Ganger in the Critical Literature competition for her essay titled “Literature as Jazz and Jazz as a Voice.”
Also honored at the event were the design team, led Kira Kolb, a junior Graphic Design major, who told the Merciad she and her team had been working on their Memphis Design-inspired project since the beginning of the spring semester.
“It’s really cool to be able to see my design printed in the book, but it wasn’t just all me because there were three other people working on it,” she said. “They also put in the same amount of time that I did to create the content in and make sure all the assets of the artistic part were in line.”
According to Kolb, the design was submitted for print in early April.
The book was distributed among the audience at the unveiling, and included the authors of the winning submissions reading their works themselves.
The event ended with an open mic, giving audience members and students who had submitted work to the Lumen the chance to read their works out loud to an eager crowd.
The entirety of this year’s edition, including the bonus content featuring Núñez’s winning submission, is accessible online at https://www.mercyhurst.edu/lumen.