Spill It

For once, spilt milk is a good thing.

A new student-founded and student-run literary magazine called
“Spilt,” named for the overturned beverage, will soon
be hitting the racks of newsstands and bookstores in Los Angeles,
San Diego and Berkeley.

When speaking of the magazine’s logo of an overturned milk
bottle, Christina Han, the magazine’s founder, said,
“We’re overturning the establishment.”

“I was writing short stories on the side and didn’t
really know how to get them out to literary agents,” she
said. “The problem is that if you’ve never been
published, they won’t look at your stuff.”

Even though UCLA has had a few literary magazines for students
such as “Split Peas” and “Westwind,” Han
wanted a magazine that would include literature and art that would
be widely distributed to newsstands and other campuses.

“I got the idea to make a functional literary magazine not
just for students, but for people in the community,” Han
said.

While the majority of submissions have come from UCLA students,
she has received work from other campuses as well. Those who have
already contributed to the magazine are enthusiastic that it is
filling a void in the UC literary community.

Lauren Wang, a cognitive science graduate from UC Berkeley, sees
it as a way to get a foot in the door of the literary
community.

“I think it’s a great idea because when they first
told me about the magazine, there was nothing like it in
Berkeley,” Wang said. “I think it is supposed to be
good for helping you find a job.”

One of the goals for the magazine is to be as dynamic as
possible, with plenty of room for change. Every issue will be
different in terms of layout, and each issue will have its own
color theme, both visually and in the writing itself. Han said the
first issue will be themed “white” to start things off
cleanly and simply.

Another intent of the magazine’s staff is that the content
of the magazine should span all forms of literature and art.

“The short stories range from nonfiction stuff to really
out-there, absurd Charles Bukowski-esque stories. And the poetry
ranges from spiritual, religious stuff to limericks,” Han
said.

Given that the magazine intends to incorporate all forms of art,
it also intends to encourage all types of people to contribute.

“It’s pretty much an all-inclusive California
magazine,” Han said. “There are a lot of people in the
engineering department or biology who actually do write or do
artwork, but they never have the chance to let it show.”

For Salima Hamirani, a third-year chemistry student, the
magazine is a way to get published even though writing has little
to do with her major.

“I heard about it on campus through a friend, and I
thought it would be cool to get some stuff published,” she
said. “I talked to (Han), and she seemed really cool, and
they didn’t want to edit too much what I’d
written.”

The goal is for the magazine to come out seasonally, with an
issue for each quarter of the school year. Currently, Han and her
staff are gathering submissions and finalizing the layout, aiming
to publish the first issue in January.

The magazine will not be a bare-bones, newsletter-style startup
though; its staff of six is making every effort to ensure that it
will be a bonafide glossy-paged magazine published at a
professional printer.

“We were thinking of starting out like the first Rolling
Stone with just a newsletter-style issue, but that wouldn’t
be fair to the art and photography,” Han said.

That’s why “Spilt” got in touch with a staff
member of a major magazine (who Han wishes to remain anonymous),
who has helped them work out issues of cost, layout, printing and
more.

While Han has gotten some advertisers, funding remains an
issue.

“We are basically just working out of our own pockets and
whoever is willing to donate or sponsor,” said Han. “In
the future we hope it’s free, but for now, just to get
started, we have to charge.”