Broken Ink Celebrates its 50th

by Mere Hawcroft

Aiken, SC (05/03/2018) — After great anticipation, the editors of the University of South Carolina Aiken's literary and visual arts magazine, Broken Ink, released their 50th edition this semester.

The magazine welcomes a broad range of mediums including poetry, prose, short stories, creative nonfiction, song lyrics, play scripts, photography, comics, paintings, digital art, drawings, spoken word, and music. Broken Ink serves as an incredible outlet of self-expression for the campus's artistic community. The publication was guided through their quinquagenarian issue under the faithful leadership of faculty advisor Professor Roy Seeger and the editor-in-chief, senior English major Anna Kay Norris.

Broken Ink revealed this very special edition during a magazine release show hosted in the Learning Commons of the Gregg-Graniteville Library. The event featured guest speaker Derek Berry, a novelist and poet who is a native of Aiken County.

Berry read several original poems that dealt with a variety of topics, including his complicated relationship with Southern culture. In his poem "Elegy for an Accent," Berry passionately proclaimed "If you listen as I speak, you will hear a smothered drawl, a crooked echo, a violence in this voice erasing its past. You will hear heritage, a secret I cannot unspeak."

After Berry's reading, the Broken Ink staff announced the winners for multiple award categories, beginning with the Washington Group Award, a creative writing award made possible through an endowment fund established by Washington Group International.

David Corder won first place for the prose category with his piece "Breakfast."

"It's an honor to get first for prose," Corder said. "My freshman year I submitted a story to the magazine, and it was ripped apart. Broken Ink has really helped me improve as a writer."

"I believe I'm a writer because God gave me that gift. I'm using the gift of writing the best I can, and Broken Ink has been a big part of that."

Corder's other wins for the night included third place in the prose category for "Shoes Full of Sand" and second place in the poetry category for "Splash."

The top-ranking visual artists were also recognized through the Ink Splat Award sponsored by the USC Aiken Art Department.

This year, Broken Ink continued to expand multi-media submissions by featuring original music and spoken word recordings accessible through a scannable QR code in the magazine. The Rollover Beethoven Award was made possible through the generosity of the USC Aiken Music Department and given to Jeremy Smith for his audio piece "Creation No. 1."

Following the award portion of the evening, artists featured in the magazine were invited to read their pieces aloud during an open mic segment.

Liam Dakin, who won first place for the poetry category, performed his winning piece "Wild Turkeys."

Dakin began by saying, "Unlike most of the people in the room tonight, I'm not from the South. I'm not from the North either. I'm not really from anywhere because I'm from Oklahoma."

This setting was the basis for Dakin's poem as he explored childhood memories from the woods of Oklahoma.

After this monumental release party, editor-in-chief Anna Kay Norris said, "I am incredibly proud of Broken Ink's 50th volume. I could not have gotten through the year without my very dedicated and supportive Broken Ink family."

The staff of Broken Ink was once again excited to show off the product of their labor as well as the tremendous talent of USC Aiken's student body. The open mic and magazine combined to create a vivid demonstration of the young talent emerging from USC Aiken who helped make the last 50 editions possible.

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