Flyleaf Journal teamed up with Bird’s Thumb for the Sapphire Summer Reading Series. Both emerging journals, Flyleaf publishes one story at a time in a pamphlet-style size, complete with illustrations from an artist, and Bird’s Thumb publishes fiction, poetry, and essays in their online journal. The reading featured work from three authors published with each journal for six readings total. It was at Bru Chicago in Wicker Park.

Man, was this cool. I’ve been on the other end of reading series, both as just an audience member and a reader, but it was cool to host one with a journal that you work on. I’m an editor for Flyleaf and I emceed the event. Three of our readers happen to be faculty at Columbia, and they were delighted to come read. An editor from Bird’s Thumb emceed for their readers. If you haven’t checked out their journal yet, please do!

First, we had Eric May, whose work was a folktale. Eric commanded the audience with his deep voice and animated reading. Patti McNair was the next Flyleaf reader, and she employed Eric to read parts of her story, which is told through answering machine messages. Eric read for the answering machine, and it was fun to watch these two great writers have fun on stage. Finally, Mort Castle closed down the night with a republished story about a boy who loses his dog and grandfather. In between each Flyleaf piece, an author or two from Bird’s Thumb read a story of theirs. It was really cool to see this interplay, as both journals are great and have a different aesthetic that made the reading series really interesting.

Both journals started from students that are in the Creative Writing — Fiction program at CCC—Matthew Jankiewicz started Flyleaf and Sahar Mustafah co-founded Bird’s Thumb. An event like this was the fruits of their labors of love. If you’re just coming into Columbia, find your artistic community and start creating things together. These two journals are proof that working together and having a vision will lead to some exciting products.