The "Trestle Creek Review" No. 37, North Idaho College’s student-produced annual literary magazine, was washed in sunshine as it debuted Tuesday to applause during a community launch on NIC’s Eisenwinter Field.

“Art matters,” said author Jenni Fallein. “How else do we express our deepest human stuff, other than poems?”

Fallein read her selected poem "Exacto Knives," and another from her own anthology, “Civilization in Crisis." She grapples with the trauma of a car accident in "Exacto Knives" and explores the climate crisis in her anthology.

“Every year, it’s a beautiful object,” Fallein said. “We all submit our five poems every year, maybe we get one in, maybe we get none in. But it turns out to be this beautiful thing.”

Fallein, Edward Flathers, Taylor D. Waring and Serafina Dwyer read pieces or excerpts selected for the magazine by the student editors and editorial board. Students produce the magazine under adviser Jonathan Frey and editors Gladys Lemesurier, Preston Tucker and Alex Elliott.

“Our staff this year was pretty small,” Lemesurier said. “I think our conversations were still super in depth, and we had a lot of fun putting this magazine together and designing it.”

The event included a question-and-answer session with the cover artist, Helen Parsons, and authors in attendance read their selected work from the magazine or other publications.

Parsons grapples with the complexities of wanting to be anonymous and acknowledged, and the Trestle Creek editors sought to invite that conversation with the selection of the cover art, Exit Strategies 2, and other deeply vulnerable pieces in the magazine.

“At times, I do suffer from being introverted,” Parsons said. “The mask for me is a way to symbolize putting on the mask that I need … It’s a complex feeling.”

The magazine is distributed until the college runs out of prints throughout Kootenai County in public libraries, the Long Ear, The Well Read Moose, The Art Spirit Gallery and around the NIC campus. Starting this year, students are trying to broaden the distribution to Spokane at Auntie’s Bookstore and Moscow at Bookpeople of Moscow, to expand the reach of the magazine, Lemesurier said.

The authors who read their work stayed to sign autographs for aspiring writers, students and guests who attended.

“These were really very interesting stories,” said John David Endicott, an NIC student and aspiring author. His favorite reading was excerpts from "Whisper" by Dwyer, who held back tears as she read.

Submissions for the 38th annual edition of the "Trestle Creek Review" will be due Jan. 31, 2024.