Students’ literary magazine continues its winning ways

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The 2023 issue of Judge Memorial Catholic High School’s ‘Catharsis’ received a Superior rating in the Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines contest.

SALT LAKE CITY — Judge Memorial Catholic High School’s annual literary magazine, Catharsis, won a Superior rating in the 2023 Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines (REALM) contest, competing against 375 entries from throughout the United States and Canada.

“Since 1995, Catharsis has earned the rank of Highest Award/First Class five times, and Superior eight times,” said Bryan Jeffreys, an English teacher at Judge Memorial who serves as the literary magazine’s advisor.

The REALM award is given by the National Council of Teachers of English. The superior rating is the second-highest ranking; First Class is the highest. In Utah, Herriman High School’s Exposure and Rowland High’s Tesserae joined Catharsis in earning a Superior rating; the Academy for Math, Engineering & Science’s Heart, Mind & Pen earned First Class.

“The REALM program publicly recognizes excellent literary magazines produced by students with the support of their teachers,” states the NCTE web page, adding that the REALM program “is designed to encourage all schools to develop literary magazines that celebrate the art and craft of writing.”

The primary mission of Catharsis is to showcase “the highly talented artists, photographers, and writers of the Judge Memorial Catholic High School student body, but being recognized in this way is important,” said Jeffreys, who serves as a judge on the REALM Committee.

Although he didn’t rate Catharsis for the contest, “I’ve seen the high-caliber submissions the program receives from colleges and high schools across the country. ... To have the work of our Catharsis staff and the creativity of our student body considered as superior in this group is special,” Jeffreys said.

Winning awards isn’t the first priority for those who work on the magazine, but “the staff and I find it validating,” Jeffreys said.

Judge Memorial CHS has had a literary magazine under various names since the 1960s. The name Catharsis came about after the late Linda Simpson became the magazine’s advisor.

“She took over in 1993 and, in 1995, decided that our magazine should be published annually under a single name. Beyond the title, Catharsis would not be what it is today if it weren’t for her passion for celebrating our students,” Jeffreys said.

Judge’s literary magazine has changed over the years, and “of course, advances in technology have helped with things like our submission process, our editing process, our layout process and our printing, as with any publication,” he said.

Any student interested in being a member of the Catharsis staff must submit an application. “Those accepted then have the opportunity to apply for editorial positions. … Our process for determining what works will be published begins by gathering submissions,” Jeffreys said.

Last year, the magazine received nearly 700 submissions from the student body, he said, and described the process by which pieces are selected for publication. Each Catharsis staff member reviews and comments on the submissions, then the entire staff has discussions about each piece. In this process, a piece receives a tag: green if the decision is that it should be included, yellow if it has potential, or red if it is not a work the magazine will publish.

“When it’s time for final decisions, we start with all the greens, then consider the yellows,” Jeffreys said.

The student editors for the award-winning Catharsis issue were Anthony Walz, Emmy Gilbert, Roan Sticka-Jones, Bridget Hankins, Sophia Nord and Pilar DeFord. The issue integrated audio recording of music through the use of QR codes.

“We’ve never done that before, and I’m grateful to last year’s staff for having that vision and making it happen,” Jeffreys said. “Our students have important things to say, profound ideas to express, transformative experiences to illustrate, and authentic emotions to reveal – all this through art, photography, music and writing. Quite simply, Catharsis is yet one more of many ways Judge students can be heard. And being published is just plain cool, too.”