Scrimshaw, a journal for new writing and visual arts, launched its fifth volume in ATU Sligo on April 30, at the Black Box in the Arts Building of the College. The publication is the work of final-year Writing and Literature Students. The launch saw speeches from the Editors-in-Chief, a video from ATU President Orla Flynn, and the author of The Boy From The Sea, Garrett Carr, who expressed some words, as well as readings from people with poems included in the journal. 

Editors-in-Chief Melissa Breen and Emily James spoke to the Sligo Weekender immediately after the launch about their experience working on the journal, Scrimshaw’s growth, and how they balanced working on the journal alongside their college work. 

With emotions still high, Melissa and Emily admitted they were excited and proud now that the journal is launched. Emily stated, “ Overwhelmingly proud, not just of what we’ve done, but we’ve only been able to do that because we’ve had such amazing support from everybody. It’s just such a community project. It’s not just what we do, it’s what everybody does, and it is humbling to be part of it.”

This year will see a larger release of the publication, with copies of the journal being provided to certain libraries and bookshops in Sligo, Cork, Galway, and Dublin. Additionally, Scrimshaw will be the focus of a special journal showcase event at the Irish Writers Center in Dublin on May 20 with guest speaker Dr Keith Hopper. On the upcoming event, Emily remarked that it was a good way to get eyes on the journal from the publishing industry, confessing it was her who set-up the event “I went to the West Cork Literary Festival, and I’d been appointed the Editor-in-Chief by the time that festival came on, and I knew the Irish Writers’ Centre and what they did, so after one of their sessions I basically button-holed Damien Donnelly and said, I’m going to be an editor for Scrimshaw and we’re doing this, and he said, that’s great, because they want to start doing spotlights on Irish literary journals, because there’s so many of them and they’re so varied and each has its own flavour, audience and community that goes behind it” 

Another significant development for this volume was the appointment of a Social Media Manager, with the role assigned to Gemmaclaire Haverty, another final year Writing and Literature student. Scrimshaw’s social media has played an increased role in promoting the journal, alongside engaging interviews with authors like Jessamine O’ Connor and Alice Lyons. Discussing the raise in social media usage, Emily said it was something they were keen on, she stated “ I don’t have a profile, I’m not good at that stuff at all, but I know it’s important, and I know that to get people heard, you have to make it available in as many formats as possible .. and that takes effort and perseverance, and having the idea about what people will find interesting, and Gemma just naturally knows that. She’s got that intuition to say, right, this will make a good story, this will go well, this will get people into what we’re trying to do, and the breadth of interviews that she’s been doing and the variety of them, it’s just been amazing to watch.”

Melissa and Emily are online students of the Writing and Literature degree at ATU Sligo, with Melissa admitting she was concerned at first about how they would succeed while not physically being at the college. However, she stated that communications were great and particularly praised on campus student and editorial team member, Dean McMorrow, as being their boots on the ground man. She said, “We wouldn’t have been able to do half the stuff if he weren’t here. We really appreciated him there. Everyone was so accommodating. We didn’t have a problem at all.”

Emily revealed that, as a result of attending the launch, they were both able to attend class in person for the first time, “ It was so strange, because it’s like, oh God, everybody’s doing this normally. They’re not sitting in their own house.  A couple of times, I was trying to wave at people, and they were not there.”

Melissa admitted the editing experience of the journal was intense but also fun, noting they once had a seven-hour day, reflecting “everyone was such a trooper, because it was long and it was gruelling. But we’re glad we put that work in and that we gave each submission its time.”

Emily elaborated that they had two five-hour meetings the following two days after that, and by the end, she didn’t know which way was up, causing her to worry if she was doing things correctly “You’re like, which was that submission and which one are we talking about? Then, sending out the rejections and the acceptances. I don’t know how many times we checked to make sure we didn’t send the wrong one to the wrong person.”

They divided the labour by giving every editor their own portfolio to work with, with Emily claiming it allowed them to work closer and better with those contributors “ I’ve got a soft spot for all of the ones that I worked with, because you get to know people backwards and forwards. Not always calm, but you get there at the end, you’ve got something everybody is pleased with and proud of, and that was important.”

With four successful volumes already out, Emily thought that something would go wrong this year, saying, “Hearing it’s a milestone regularly was a little daunting, because you don’t want to be the one to not order enough wine at the party. My biggest fears were things that I couldn’t see. When we got it all printed, and we sent the specifications, the same as it has been for the last four years. I should not have been worried, but I had this panic that it was going to be twice the size… those were the things that I ended up panicking about, that we’d miss something so big that it couldn’t be ignored.”

Emily talked about the previous volume of Scrimshaw and how it struggled to receive funding from the college, stating,” Last year, they barely had the money to do the thing, and because of that, this year, it was right in the budget because there was so much publicity afterwards about this flagship thing. We benefited from last year’s misfortunes … but it didn’t stop me panicking about that and phoning up and saying, Is it approved? Exactly how much budget do we have? And when can we do it?” Melissa commented that Scrimshaw had done a great job last year, which is why they were trusted with the funding, as the college believed it was worth the money. 

Emily mentioned she is looking forward to next year’s Scrimshaw,  as the publication continues to build on what came before, stating, “Every year it’s going to get better. They’ll take it in a different direction, or they’ll have an idea that we never even considered. They’re going to do something that’s representative of them. I think this is representative of us. We had a strong vision right from the beginning, and it’s there.” 

Melissa noted she was still in disbelief at having something that was a mere thought in her head become actualised. They communicated how bizarre it is to have it released and to no longer have to worry about it. Melissa said, “ I didn’t have to do anything on Tuesday, and every hour I was like, oh, I should… No, I don’t have anything to do today. It was very weird.” Emily replied that the feeling that something needs to be done when it doesn’t is going to last for a while.

Despite admitting they had very different views throughout the process, both agreed that the piece that spoke to them most was a poem titled By the River at 1am by Fanni Dominika Varga, and that’s why they decided to make it the first piece in the journal. Melissa recalled, “ When we were deciding the layout, Emily approached me and was like, what is the one thing that captures what we want to do? And I said that one and she was like… That’s my favourite.” With Emily responding, “ We’ve had very different views on different things all the way through … but the fact that we both picked that one was like, that’s definitely got to go first.”

Mellisa highlighted that she and Emily can be quite opposites, with Emily being wordy and creative and with Melissa focusing on screenwriting, she aims to get as much information in as small a space as possible, but they complemented and played off each other. Emily added, “ What would happen is I would write a thousand words, and then Melissa would cut it down to 50, and that was the 50 right words, but we had to go through that.”

Melissa and Emily noted they have held off on reading Scrimshaw since it was published. Emily expressed, “I’ve read everything in that journal so many times, line by line, word by word. I haven’t touched it since it went to print because I’m too scared to look at it, just in case there’s something obvious.

Mellisa was surprised that they were able to balance working on Scrimshaw alongside their final year college work. Emily revealed that she works as well, and that she was trying to juggle the three things, stating, “The thing is that you do stuff that you love. It doesn’t feel hard to fit in, and you’re thinking about it all the time anyway. I would say I had far too many sleepless nights thinking, I’ve got to remember to do this, or I’ve got to do that, or I’ve got to check that.” 

Melissa remarked that what kept making it easier was the variety of different things they had to do “It was easy because there were so many different jobs. We weren’t doing the same thing every day. There’s just so much to it that there is variety. So it was fun, and that helped. That was a good motivator.”

Finally, Emily wanted to encourage people to submit their work, whether to Scrimshaw or somewhere else, stating, “You will get rejected sometimes, but when it works and when you have your stuff in print, it’s such an amazing feeling. It’s been such an honour to … enable people to have their voices heard. I can’t recommend people doing that enough. Whatever it is, send it off to the best place you can think of and keep doing it because everybody has this amazing voice and perspective.”