The Cross­ings Re­leases New Print Edi­tion 

MISHAWAKA—In Oc­to­ber, a new print edi­tion for the Cross­ings was re­leased, fea­tur­ing sev­eral pieces writ­ten by Bethel stu­dents and sub­mit­ted dur­ing the spring 2022 se­mes­ter. 

Ac­cord­ing to Michala Zap­pia, man­ag­ing ed­i­tor and on­line me­dia man­ager for the Cross­ings, the pieces for this print edi­tion were se­lected by Cross­ings staff dur­ing the first three weeks of the fall 2022 se­mes­ter. She said many of the works cho­sen for print are rel­a­tive to cur­rent events hap­pen­ing around the world.  

“For the print edi­tion, we try to find things that are ei­ther hap­pen­ing in the world at large or even what hap­pens on Bethel’s cam­pus,” Zap­pia said. “Things on strug­gling through faith as well. Whether it’s some­body that’s cur­rently strug­gling or com­ing out of the other side of the strug­gle—just things like that, to let other peo­ple know that they are not alone in their strug­gles.” 

Zap­pia said the ex­tra at­ten­tion the Cross­ings team put into the se­lec­tion process and or­der of this print edi­tion is part of what makes this unique from other print edi­tions in the past. 

“When you read it, it fol­lows a nat­ural flow, makes sense, and each piece bleeds into the next,” Zap­pia said. 

An­other item mak­ing this print edi­tion dif­fer­ent from other print edi­tions in the past is that due to some un­ex­pected cir­cum­stances, the Cross­ings was not able to in­cor­po­rate any stu­dent art­work into the newest print edi­tion. 

Zap­pia said that what usu­ally goes into the se­lec­tion of stu­dent art­work is how much the art re­lates to the other pieces in the print. 

“We do like to fea­ture stu­dent art, both in the print and on­line edi­tion, and we’re work­ing to make con­nec­tions for that,” Zap­pia said. “For fu­ture print edi­tions, we would like to be able to fea­ture three to five vi­sual art pieces, and then we also want to be able to put some on our web­site.” 

The pieces fea­tured in this print edi­tion were also pub­lished on the Cross­ings web­site, cross­ingsjour­nal.org, on Oct. 22. 

Zap­pia also men­tioned the Cross­ings is plan­ning an event that pre­sents an ex­cit­ing op­por­tu­nity for stu­dents in No­vem­ber. 

“We are in the plan­ning stage for a cre­ative writ­ing and read­ing night in No­vem­ber,” Zap­pia said. “We are wait­ing for con­fir­ma­tion on a date right now. It will be an open mic sit­u­a­tion where peo­ple can ei­ther sign up or just show up and read an ex­cerpt from one of their cre­ative pieces.” 

Watch for posters to go up around cam­pus with more de­tails once a date has been spec­i­fied.