"DePaul’s Blue Book: Best Illinois High School Writing 2018-19” features 66 works considered from over 70 high school literary magazines from around the state of Illinois. (Image courtesy of Chris Green)
DePaul’s “Blue Book Anthology,” a collection of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, celebrates the creative writing talent of Illinois high school students. Founded by Chris Green, a senior professional lecturer of English in the College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences, and edited by students in the Writing & Publishing graduate program, “DePaul’s Blue Book: Best Illinois High School Writing 2018-19” features 66 works considered from over 70 high school literary magazines from around the state.
The project came about from Green’s passion for writing and his background as a high school English teacher.
“I remember how much passion and attention the high school students gave to their creative writing, so I wanted to honor and recognize that,” he says.
With the help of graduate assistant Chris Watkins, Green contacted hundreds of Illinois high schools to collect their literary magazines. Green and his graduate students then worked to narrow and finalize their selection.
“This was a chance for the graduate students to gain some editing experience and an opportunity to curate something meaningful for young writers,” Green says.
To celebrate the anthology, a launch reading was held last quarter at the DePaul Student Center. More than 100 high school students and parents were in attendance, and 20 students from the anthology read their pieces.
“I’ve hosted and attended many readings, and this one was really special. The readers were poised, and their work exceptional. The room had an incredibly positive energy, and the families were thrilled for their students,” Green says.
Moving forward, Green envisions the project will continue to grow in the coming years.
“We hope to continue the project year-to-year to help build its reputation and to reach out to more schools as we refine our list to find more writers to honor in the future,” he says.
This project is the latest work from DePaul’s English department, which also established DePaul’s Publishing Institute in 2019 to promote the student literary magazine “Crook & Folly,” the poetry journal “Poetry East,” the urban prose journal “Slag Glass City,” and Big Shoulders Books. Big Shoulders Books is another writing and editing avenue for students, publishing books that give unique voices to communities and important issues in Chicago. Its sixth title will be published this spring, “American Gun: A Poem by 100 Chicagoans,” edited by Green.
“We are truly excited to be able to showcase the talents of these wonderful high school writers and other work being published by our English undergraduate and graduate students,” says Guillermo Vasquez de Valasco, dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences. “’DePaul’s Blue Book’ specifically is a model project for community-engaged teaching and learning in the liberal arts.”