‘Words, Words, Words’ is the theme for MiNT magazine this semester. As the oldest actively running student magazine at Geneseo, MiNT has no intention of stopping anytime soon.
MiNT started as a grant given to a couple of students who wanted to provide a voice for everyone on campus. These students fashioned MiNT as sort of an editorial, similar to The New Yorker. MiNT Editor-in-Chief senior Lara Mangino explained the origins of the club.
“It was started as kind of a magazine meant to be focused around diversity and multiculturalism,” Mangino said. “The name ‘MiNT’ came about because it was refreshing, like when you put a mint in your mouth and you have fresh breath, so it was supposed to be like a fresh perspective.”
Now the magazine publishes almost primarily poetry, short fiction and short nonfiction. They peruse a wide range of pieces.
“We’ve reviewed everything from the deepest, darkest poetry to the silliest comedy pieces,” Mangino said. “At the end of the day if you, the submitter, wants to give it to us, we’ll look at anything.”
A few semesters ago, someone submitted a film review and another person sent in their final essay for a class. MiNT edited and published both.
During weekly meetings, the members of the magazine read through submissions, discussing and rating them. While they give every piece a serious review, the weekly meetings contain a healthy helping of humor.
“We pick our themes in the first meeting of every semester, and we usually throw a bunch of ideas out there,” Mangino said. “Usually there’s some serious ones, and there are some funny ones, and ‘Words, Words, Words’ kind of straddled the line between the two.”
MiNT reviews every submission without attributing a name to them until the end of the process. Generally, the magazine looks for a strong voice and a sense of relatability in a work that can connect to a reader. Over the years, people have written about their ethnic and racial backgrounds, family dynamics and religions, giving a lot of different people a voice.
Every club waxes and wanes in terms of members. In MiNT’s case, there was concern last year when MiNT was down to three members, all of whom were e-board.
“It was definitely hard to carry on in that way, but we sort of dug in our heels this semester and we were like, ‘you know what, we have to adapt in order to keep going,’” Mangino said.
Some major changes, including the decision to have people apply to be on e-board at the start of the semester instead of holding elections, have paid off. With a full e-board of seven members and a bunch of general members who joined this year, MiNT is back and better than ever.
“Certainly we’ve had our ups and downs as an organization, as every club has, but I think at the end of the day we’re a necessary part of the campus, and I think that’s what kept us around,” Mangino said.
Mangino’s favorite part of working on MiNT, and literary magazines in general, is holding the finished product at the end with pride.
“It touches on the pulse of Geneseo to a certain extent, that these are what people are thinking about, and this is what we’re creating,” Mangino said. “We usually have writers read their stuff aloud; we have artists present a little bit about it. We’re excited to see everyone there.”