Questionnaire #11: With Riley Hammond, former Writ Large & Waterfront Editor-in-Chief

*Note: This interview was never completed by Riley but written permission to publish it was received, and after some time waiting for updates I have decided to release it in its unfinished form alongside every question I had hoped to have an answer to. Great care should be takenmaking inferences from nonresponses. 

Question #1: Can you please introduce yourself a little and tell me how long you worked at The Mass Media / Writ Large? How did you come to join the staff? 

I'm Riley Hammond, a UMass Boston psychology alumni and former Head Copyeditor for The Mass Media, Managing Editor for Writ Large, and Editor-in-Chief for The Waterfront. I originally joined the staff of The Mass Media solely because I needed a job. My friend Olivia Reid, who was a photographer at the time as well as the EIC for Writ Large, told me about the position. I began working in April 2022 as a Copyeditor. 

In Fall 2022, my friend Olivia was having trouble finding a Managing Editor, as the previous ME graduated in Spring 2022 after their 10,000 hours issue. At the time, the style guide for The Mass Media and Writ Large was nearly identical, and I was fostering a love for editing, so I joined on as Managing Editor. I didn't require any training, and if I recall correctly, nobody else was applying.

Question #2: What was the culture of the journal like at the time, to the best of your recollection? Feel free to include anecdotes or personal recollections as you like. 

Writ Large felt somewhat like a dying publication at the time. We somehow became locked out of the old Instagram for a while, and therefore needed to rebuild a following on a new account. Social media has become a huge way of marketing clubs, which I learned during my time as EIC for UMass Boston's Her Campus chapter. But I was only a sophomore when I joined Writ Large, and I still wasn't totally used to campus culture, especially with UMass Boston being a commuter school. I wasn't aware of just how big social media's role was in getting word out at UMB.

People heard about Writ Large either through posters we hung on the wall, UMBeInvolved posts, word of mouth, or professors. We contacted many professors to try and schedule times to meet with classes or at least have them show a flier to advertise that the publication was a thing. I'll admit that I think we could have done a better job at marketing Writ Large. A lot of professors agreed to show our flier, but usually it was not possible for me to visit classes due to my schedule or their syllabus. We didn't get a lot of added interest from our marketing efforts anyhow. When it comes to editorial writing, the students who were interested typically reached out of their own accord. I've received an email since my graduation about The Waterfront that mentioned The Watermark as well.

The student status of our dedicated contributors was confusing. I believe one of the contributors was an alumni who attended UMass Boston decades ago, which was technically frowned upon by our advisor because he wanted us to include student work first and foremost. We also weren't supposed to include any professor's work as a student magazine, but I believe we did in the “Mind over Matter” issue. The previous EIC allegedly added works from non-students entirely. I believe an article from the New York Times is in the “Millennial Map” issue. I don't have a copy, but there was one in The Waterfront’s office. 

It's important to note that issues were themed for Writ Large when I worked there. I worked on the issues “Mind over Matter” and “Sights and Sounds,” and I contributed to “10,000 hours.” We considered that the theming might have led to a lower turnout of contributors despite the fact that we often included work that didn't go with the themes we set. That's ultimately why I decided not to have a theme for The Waterfront. Themes were explained in the posters and fliers we sent out. I probably have copies of them in my Outlook if you're interested in having an example. 

Since The Watermark fulfilled a role as the literary magazine, Writ Large technically wasn't supposed to include poems or creative writing. However, we definitely included a poem or two in the issues we produced when I worked there. We couldn't really afford not to. I think that's a big reason why the publications were merged. 

Overall, it seemed like the interest for an op-ed magazine just wasn't there anymore. Not to the extent of publishing a full magazine, anyway. 

And one could say that was true for The Watermark, too. Their last issue was a lot fuller than ours, though. One of the covers for a certain issue was technically archival work, as it was submitted in a prior year. Olivia knew more about that detail than I did, as she was friends with the photographer who submitted it. I believe her friend received an email saying his photograph would be featured on The Watermark's cover, which was a surprise considering it was submitted at a prior time. 

Submissions were sent in via email..  

Question #3: What was student engagement like during your time at The Writ Large? As best you can remember, how many submissions on average did you get per issue? How many people worked together to produce an issue? 

Engagement was low at Writ Large. I believe we received submissions from twelve different people for “Sights and Sounds.” Some students submitted more than once. Olivia and I both included our own work aside from the Letter from the Editor and Foreword because we wanted to beef up the publication. I prefer not to include my own work when possible. The purpose of the magazine is to amplify and uplift other student's voices, so it feels disingenuous to include work from staff before the contributors. This caused some disagreements during my time as EIC for The Waterfront, especially considering that my work was featured in Writ Large across multiple works. I would say we had an average of 15 contributors at Writ Large, and that might be a high estimate. 

There were two staff roles when I worked there, and our work flow revolved around those roles. The Editor-in-Chief was responsible for formatting submissions into the magazine using InDesign, making posters, managing social media, as well as ordering prints of the latest issue, merchandising to market the magazine, and anything required for the staff party. The Managing Editor was responsible for reviewing and editing submissions for style guide adherence and , In the past, there were contributors who volunteered to edit work. 

Question #4: Do you have any memory of how many copies of each issue were made that you worked on? Some editors' notes of other UMB publications say ‘This Volume had 4,000 copies made’ and others don’t track production rates. Even a rough guess would be super helpful. 

Question #4.5: How were copies you did print distributed on campus? 

Question #5:  What was institutional support for Writ Large like in your time working at it? What did UMass-provided expertise, mentorship, and support look like?

Question #6: While you worked at Writ Large, was there an institutional memory of its past? By that I mean did Writ Large have an archival memory of itself and how it related to other publications like Howth Castle, or was it more future facing towards producing the next issues? 

Question #7: Can you tell me more about the decision to merge the two publications, Watermark and Writ Large? Please be as detailed as you are comfortable being. 

Question #8: I spoke with Katrina Sanville, a former Mass Media Editor-in-Chief who said you, quote, “continued to work on the revamp throughout senior year’. What was it like doing this revamp? It sounds intense, was it a one-person job? 

Question #9: When you did finish it, and did print your revamped journal, can you remember roughly how many copies of it you did print? How did you distribute this journal across campus? In the interest of full honesty, I have a PDF of The Waterfront on my computer. Was online distribution a part of your process? 

Question #10: What was, during your time, institutional support like for The Waterfront? Did people in the English Department or Student Activities know you were doing this, and support you accordingly? 

Question #11: As someone who has by now worked on multiple campus publications in an undergraduate context, what do you think someone who wants to make a journal needs to do to be successful at UMass, and is there anything that the administration or faculty should know? 

Question 12 (optional one added in at the last minute) : I know you worked on Writ Large. What can you say about The Watermark during your time at UMass? How was it similar or different to Writ Large in terms of engagement and support, or even campus memory? Did people know that these publications like Writ Large, Waterfront , and Watermark existed?