Every year the students of English 6060 put California State University, East Bay on the map through its very own student-run publication known as the “Arroyo Literary Review.”

The publication’s sixth issue holds true to Arroyo’s aim of giving a platform to poets and other creative writers in the West.

“Our goal is to apply a literary voice to the West Coast,” said Editor-in-Chief Christopher Morgan.

Morgan and Poetry Editor TJ Lyons just wrapped up an interview that is going to feature American Poet Willis Barnstone in the next issue.

At 86, Barnstone lives in Oakland and is a veteran to the professional American poetry scene. The last 25 years of his career has been spent translating the New Testament from the original source.

The sixth issue features a portion of a book by Barnstone’s son, Tony, that includes illustrations by Iranian Artist Amin Mansouri.

Lyons and Morgan gained this connection to the Barnstones through their trip to last years’ Association of Writers & Writing Programs competition, which is an annual conference and book fair. Another portion of the proceeds accumulated by every issue go towards this trip.

“Going to AWP was extremely beneficial to the magazine because we met a lot of people and we made a lot of contacts,” said Lyons. As a part of the MFA program, the purpose for Faculty Advisor Susan Gubernat’s English 6060 course is to train English graduate students in editing to get them better prepared for the publishing world.

Costs of production are covered by student fees, alumni grants, and revenues accumulated from the last issues’ sales.

The sixth issue is selling for $8 this year at the Pioneer bookstore. Every issue takes around a year to make, so Morgan is already starting to work with his team of editors on issue seven.

This is Lyons’ first issue as poetry editor and Morgan’s second issue as editor-in-chief. Members of the Arroyo staff are barred from submission but they accept submissions from anyone anywhere in the United States. The majority of the writings are unsolicited, though they do have a handful of solicited writers that are from California and the Bay Area.

The current issue features 24 writers. A few of the poets besides Barnstone included are Stanford lecturer John W. Evans, Vice President of the Sacramento Poetry Center Tim Kahl, and San Francisco State University Professor Dean Rader.

In the five years since Gubernat started English 6060, she has seen the Arroyo Literary Review grow from 88 to 138 pages. She has also seen it win the Pushcart Prize, which recognizes literary work printed in smaller publications and editors she has personally trained move on to bigger things.

“You know a lot of the time, as an English professor, I’m asked what you can do besides teach as an English major, and one of the things you can do is get into the world of publishing,” said Gubernat.