Glyph Galas

Posted by Isaac Leigh in Creative Writing

First to be published by Santa Fe University Press. First to be registered with, and sent to the Library of Congress. First to be available to 39,000 bookstores: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, independent booksellers, libraries and institutions via book distributor Ingram. First for sale to readers throughout the United States and beyond. Glyph’s 28th edition, officially released as of the Glyph Gala on May 3, is rife with firsts—giving the journal a higher profile for the selected authors and student editors.    

Event after the GYLPH book reading. Photo by Whitney Wernick.

The Glyph Gala this year featured readings from all genre winners, first through third place in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. The award-winning pieces, maybe not so strangely, seemed to be thematically unified and in a dialogue with one another. Emergent themes were around god or the void, whether that be in bodies of water, biblical allusions, the expanse of loneliness or ghosts. These themes exemplified the common subconscious of the journal and the way the book resonates as a unit. The pieces were thoughtful, resonant, and communicative.

Food by Jambo Cafe, a DJ and Video Jockey followed the reading, and people milled around the room waiting for the big reveal of the book’s cover; a well kept secret by the Glyph staff.

“A lot of people showed up,” says reader Madeline Sardina, “and it feels like everyone is really excited to be here.”

Music provided by Rollo Douglas after the book reading. Photo by Whitney Wernick.

The sheet finally came off the mound of new books for the first time, revealing the brand new copies, supple and simple. Postcards were made as inserts for these copies, adorned with a similar visual theme as the cover. Glyph staff also selected single resonant lines of text from works to place on the postcards like: ‘They must sleep like smooth bears in the blue dark’, or ‘In the blood of my birth, they smelled a meal’. Congratulations circulated around the foyer as people fanned through the copies, food or cake in hand.     

“It’s nice to be done, just because it was so much work,” says Glyph editor Brianna Neumann. “It’s also nice to see so much work culminate into something really cool.”        

Another first for this edition of Glyph was a secondary reading for any non-award winners to showcase their published work at Collected Works Bookstore on May 6. The reading featured: Marjorie Solo, Franco Romero, Chantelle Mitchell, Marina Woollven and Ana Stina Rimal, each reading their exemplary pieces in the edition, whether that be flash fiction, lyric essay, nonfiction essay or poetry.

“It was a real pleasure,” says Marjorie Solo, “and I’m honored that the Glyph staff asked me to read tonight. It’s really exciting that the book is on sale.”

Glyph is currently on sale on Amazon and at your local bookseller.