Last Wednesday inside the MiST Theatre, Mindwaves contributors met to present their newest issue to a packed audience. Currently in its sixth year of publication, Mindwaves is a collection of short stories put out by students in the professional writing and communication program. This year they received about 150 pages of submissions, more than double the number in previous years, according to student editor-in-chief Adam Erb. He described the process as “arduous”, but said it was rewarding seeing all the hard work pay off at the book launch.
Tracy Moniz, the faculty advisor for the book for the past three years, said every year has been unique, since each year the writers and the student editing team is different. In her opening speech of the night, quoting the foreword of the book, she said, “Mindwaves is the celebration of what new writers can achieve.” This year’s authors showed what writers can accomplish.
While most writers are in the PWC program, there are some who aren’t, like Michael Dzingala, whose story “The Shield” made this year’s cut. He is a third-year student majoring in comparative physiology. He said WRI203, “Expressive Writing”, was “just a course he had to take”, and that he didn’t know he had it in him to be a writer.
Dzingala does not plan to continue writing, but there was one author this year who said his life was turned around because of writing. Shane Driver, with his story “Davy Boy”, is a 29-year-old first-year in the PWC program. When asked what it meant to him to be published, he replied, “This meant a lot to me. I had some health problems and needed to have a couple surgeries done. If it was not for this, I would have still been in bed at home in chronic pain. Writing has really changed my life and inspired me to do more and continue to write.”
