Goodbye Seniors of Tahoma West

Tahoma West gives students, staff, faculty, and alumni the opportu­nity to publish their own work. This year, Tahoma West received a 87% budget cut, which meant most of the staff members were volunteers and they only had enough money to print the publica­tion and pay the Editor-In-Chief. Tahoma West’s goal this year was to share the di­verse voices of UWT and promote creativ­ity on campus. This goal helped created a lot of first times for Tahoma West, wheth­er it was collaborating with SAB to form poetry night, celebrating poetry month, poetry flash mobs, or hosting a senior writing showcase.

The members of Tahoma West consist of Editor-in-Chief Nicole McCarthy, Fic­tion Editors Kevin Yeoman and Crystal Reeves, Nonfiction Editor Chelsea Vitone, Poetry Editors Kari Treese and Cory Smith, and Layout Editor Angelic Sugai.In order to understand the hard work that was put into Tahoma West, let’s learn about two of the major contributors of Tahoma West, Nicole McCarthy and Kari Treese.

Editor-in-Chief Nicole McCarthy is a Writing Studies major at UWT and has been involved with Tahoma West for two years. She was a poetry editor for her first year at Tahoma West. McCarthy explains that a typical day at Tahoma West consist of weekly meetings where the workers read submission pieces and discuss the pros and cons of the pieces.

McCarthy is currently involved as an online editor assistant at “The James Franco Review”, a literary journal trying to create visibility for journal publications. This journal consists of people submitting literary stuff under the name of the famous actor “James Franco”, so writers have a chance to get published. McCarthy will be attending graduate school for an MFA (master of fine arts) in the experimental creative writing program at UW Bothell.

Another major contributor to Tahoma West is Poetry Editor Kari Treese. Treese is Writing Studies major with a minor in Math and has been working for Tahoma West for a year. What made her want to get involved was her love of poetry.

When asking Treese what she ex­pected she was getting involved in Taho­ma West, she said, “ I expected that I would be reading pieces and selecting poetry but what I didn’t quite expect was that we would become a family in the office.”

Treese mentions that one of the most rewarding things that she got to witness at Tahoma West was at the Volume 19 book release at Anthem when she got the chance to listen to a variety of voices that now have the platform of Tahoma West to showcase their work.

Treese will be starting UCLA’s gradu­ate program in the summer to teach sec­ondary mathematics. Even though she is hoping teach high school math, she also has some poems and essays that she is hoping to find homes for in publications.

As Treese leaves for graduate school she hopes that Tahoma West will end up in the hands of students who haven’t read the magazine before and they will get a feel for the amazing literary work that is coming out of UWT.

Since 1997, Tahoma West has docu­mented the evolution of movements and emotions of UWT culture and shared it with the community. The continuation of highlighting the literary arts at UWT wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work of seniors at Tahoma West.