It’s the year 1966. In a quaint dorm room in the Bohemian wilds of Bennington, Vermont, a young Anne Waldman ‘66—who most recently won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Book Awards—is at work. She is writing furiously on piles and piles of yellow papers—with ink leaking into the margins—submitted by fellow Bennington students. According to rumors, she is at work on editing the ninth issue of The Silo—the student-run and produced journal of arts and letters at Bennington College. Later that spring, this small press literary magazine was printed and wrapped around in a purple cover, with pages totalling up to 127. A protégé of Waldman, this volume includes work by writers such as Lewis Warsh, Howard Nemerov, Gay Harrisman, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and more.
Assimilating itself into the literary world as early as 1942, The Silo began production as an online journal in the fall of 2009. As per the current website, the journal publishes the work of Bennington students, striving to represent a range of work in all disciplines. A submission form opens in the fall of each year. In the spring, a cumulative volume of work from both terms is published. Each issue is made possible through hard work on behalf of The Silo editorial board as each piece is chosen after careful discussion and deliberation, with the goal of capturing the multifarious artistic sensibilities of Bennington College students.
Providing an outlet for student writing and editing, the current masthead includes Miracle Thornton ‘24 (editor-in-chief), Willa Brosnihan ‘25 (managing editor), and submissions editors Sebastian Martinez ‘25, Blu Mehari ‘26, Chuna Chugay ‘25, Nicholas Bonifas ‘26, Anja Damron ‘25, and Simu Kaur ‘27. Recently, I interviewed editor-in-chief, Miracle Thornton ‘24, and managing editor, Willa Brosnihan ‘25 about the journal. We talked about editing, student work, events, and more. Here’s the transcript:
Simu Kaur: What kind of work does Silo publish? What are some of the aesthetic sensibilities you are looking for while reading student work?
Miracle Thornton: The journal is really designed to be representative of all of the unique voices here at Bennington. We are all in classes with one another and engaging with relatively similar material, so you can really get a sense for what the classroom/workshop looks like. Part of our process centers well-executed and intriguing work rather than our “preferences.” It is the most objective we can get while holding a standard.
Willa Brosnihan: We keep it broad! I don’t know if we’re looking for a specific aesthetic; we’re oriented towards work that seems distinct, honed, and crafted. There’s so much of that here at Bennington that we’ve had to be very selective in order to not go over our page limit and budget for publication. That being said, I think a lot of us on our team are interested in language and sound, so that’s been very vital to explore together.
Simu Kaur: Walk us through the submissions and editing process for Silo.
Miracle Thornton: Our submissions open twice a school year: once for the duration of Fall Term and then once for a short period in Spring Term. The boring stuff: we take submissions through a Google Form which are uploaded to a Google Sheet and then we all obsessively check the sheet until boom! We print!
Willa Brosnihan: The process is discussion-oriented. First, we review the submitted work independently and then come together as a group to talk about submissions. Our team consists of a number of people who have worked for other literary magazines in the past, including Bennington’s very own Bennington Review so we have a pretty well-rounded team and it’s been very exciting to explore a diverse range of perspectives.
Simu Kaur: Is there anything specific that you would like to address in terms of the submissions that you receive?
Miracle Thornton: In the past the journal has been incredibly poetry dominated, but we’ve gotten a great pool of prose submissions this year! The next goal is to get in with visual artists and maybe even musicians. Did you know SILO has discs in the library? And a bandcamp?
Willa Brosnihan: We’d really like to pump up the art submissions—especially visual arts—in the future. We get a generous amount of poetry submissions (probably more than we receive prose submissions!) because of the widespread poetry community on campus. We always love to bring artists and writers together as best we can, in the pages of our publication—both online and in-print.
Simu Kaur: Would you like to talk more about Silo’s influence on Bennington and beyond?
Miracle Thornton: If you go through the archives of SILO in Crossett, you can find sponsorships for local business and such. We had a collaborative event with our visual arts editor Chuna at the Bennington Community Market, and we also hosted a small event at the Robert Frost Museum. The journal can really go beyond the page and it’s been wonderful to be a part of such a supportive community.
Willa Brosnihan: We’ve been lucky to get a lot of community engagement and people who’re open and excited to be part of events that we organize even if Covid really did a number in terms of its presence and student involvement. So recently, we’re really putting our energy towards community-based events to get people together to talk about literature and writing, in settings that feel like a party… and have snacks! Silo has such a long history here. In the past, especially the 60’s and 70’s, there has been a robust culture surrounding Silo and student publications at Bennington. We’re passionate about getting such engagement back in place.
Simu Kaur: What are some of your hopes and aspirations for Silo?
Miracle Thornton: SILO’s board has taken on many different forms over the years, and this time around it happened to be a board. It felt more comfortable in terms of getting a feel for the process. We’d love to experiment with the more open forum in the future and continue to stay relevant to newer students.
Willa Brosnihan: We’ve had a lot of people express interest in the journal. I think Silo is really coming back to life. We’ve been able to bring the community together through events such as open-mics, sometimes in the same numbers as the official literature at Bennington events on campus. I think this really shows how excited people are about getting involved, sharing their work, and engaging with the work of others. We just want to provide as many opportunities as possible to get student work out there in a way that feels flourishing. We’re very much looking forward to welcoming freshmen and sophomores to join the team so that there can be a next generation of Silo.
Simu Kaur: What’s next for Silo?
Willa Brosnihan: We’re currently planning a student publications fair with a couple other publications on campus, which will coincide with Sunfest, in the hopes to share that work together and put forward the depth and scope of the creative perspectives that are abundant around campus.
Follow The Silo on Instagram: @silobennington
Find out more on the website: https://silobennington.wordpress.com/
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