Oberlin’s standby literary magazine, the Enchiridion, is going back to its roots this semester, re-launching under its original name, The Plum Creek Review. After several semesters of turmoil that included financial troubles and a virtual revolving door of collaborators, the change is part of what co-editor and College senior Ben Kossak termed a “re-vitalization effort.”

The magazine has been published every year since its founding in 1964, and past contributors include current Oberlin alumni professors Jeff Pence, OC ’88, and David Walker, OC ’72. It began accepting black-and-white artwork and photography in 1997 when it was reinvented as the Enchiridion, a name Kossak critiqued for being “hard to pronounce, hard to spell and no one knows what it means.”

Of course, no campus group’s story is complete without a funding crisis, and the Plum Creek Review is no exception. This past fall the publication was not given money for printing by Student Finance Committee, a problem that unfortunately coincided with plummeting submissions: only 30 instead of the usual 200. Though this semester’s funding remains a work in progress, Kossak and his co-editor, College senior Maya Silver, hope that the new name will serve to “generate buzz” and encourage new submissions.

“One of the things I lament,” said Kossak, “is that a lot of creative writing majors don’t submit, ever. I feel like we aren’t tapping the literary resources that exist on campus, and the more submissions we get, the better a publication we can produce.”

Though the magazine is typically a venue for poetry, prose, short screenplays and creative non-fiction, its editors are also looking for more “experimental” pieces for the new issue.

With plans for the semester still in flux, the mood surrounding the publication is one of cautious but determined optimism. As Kossak bluntly put it, “it would be unfortunate to be the first year in over 40 that it didn’t publish.”

Information and submission requirements for the Plum Creek Review can be found at www.oberlin.edu/stupub/plmcreek.