Montage Showcases Artistic Talents Award-Winning Literary Magazine Celebrates Student Work

Nora Ahearn, Ella Sadka

On the last day of school in May 2022, the eyes of Upper School students were drawn to a vibrant magazine cover – an image of a hand and its shadow reaching across an orange backdrop.

For years, the last day of the second semester has been the moment when students could ip through the pages of Greenhill’s literary magazine, Montage.

Delivered alongside the Cavalcade, the school’s yearbook, Montage, encapsulates the school year through the lens of Upper School writing and artwork. e publication is a culmination of visual arts like photography and paintings along with written work like poetry and short stories.

O en, a common theme is used, aimed at tying together a narrative among submitted pieces. e theme last year was “Perspective.” e voices depicted within the magazine are something that former Montage advisor and Upper School English Department Chair Joel Garza nds special about Greenhill. e sta ’s work in telling this story has earned it nalist honors in the annual Columbia Scholastic Press Association Crown Awards. e sta will learn in March whether it earned a Silver Crown or gold, the association’s highest award.

“We got a variety of types of work in di erent forms of voice that helped us put together this idea that the variety and diversity and perspective that Greenhill has makes us a stronger community,” said former Montage Editor-in-Chief Julian Iwasko ’22.

“Montage tells the emotional, intimate story of the campus,” Garza said.

“It’s just an honor, I guess, to be recognized as a crown nalist,” said senior Ela Mamdani, the current Montage editor-in-chief.

e rst volume of Montage was published in 1965, een years a er the founding of the school. In 1996, Montage won its rst Gold Crown at the CSPA Conference. Since then, the magazine has won nine more.

In 2015, Montage was upgraded from club status and became a Fine Arts elective. Fine Arts faculty member

Leslie Rucker started supervising the magazine that same year, and since then the publication has been a Crown Award nalist every year.

“I feel like a lot of times Montage is not really recognized as much as yearbook, for example,” said Iwasko. “So, it was nice to be working on something with a small group of people that we were all included [in] and could feel proud of at the end of the day.” e Montage sta currently has 12 people, making it the largest group yet, according to Rucker.

is year’s editors-in-chief are seniors Dylan Johnson and Mamdani. ey monitor the sta , oversee the publication process, lead meetings in class and help go over submissions. ey also act as representatives on behalf of the magazine.

“I’ve really enjoyed it,” said Johnson. “It’s fun to have more of a leadership role this year and teaching people how to use everything.” ere’s a clear way to determine an average haiku from one that really re ects the challenges and possibilities of the form,” Garza said. “It gives English teachers a chance to give students practice in showing not telling.”

Because Montage is a smaller group, there isn’t much of a hierarchy. e editors-in-chief are the only students with speci c roles.

“Ms. Rucker is not as much of a teacher but more of a facilitator for us,” said junior Ethan Strauss. “I think she’s really good at giving us advice and little things. But she still lets us be in control of the process and really puts trust in us.” e English Department plays a critical role in providing submissions, sometimes giving students time in class to work on free-writing assignments or simply nudging students to submit work to the Montage.

“What I will o en say to students who are doing great work is ‘I should not be the only one that is reading this work,’” said Garza.

For three years now, Montage members have also organized haiku contests with an outside judge. Ten of the haikus are featured in the magazine and the top three winners are given gi cards.

Middle and Upper School photography instructor Frank Lopez said he encourages his students to submit images to the Montage for possible publication.

“I don’t have a personal relationship with Montage, other than asking students to submit,” Lopez said. “Sometimes I will force a student to submit, knowing that speci c images work beautifully within the publication.”

As a second-semester Fine Arts elective, Montage students are focused on producing the magazine.

“I think for the readers and the contributors themselves, there’s a creative process that’s out of their hands that’s really artful and thoughtful and meaningful,” said Garza.

e process is described as a collaborative process by both Rucker and students.

“We do research looking at the old Montage magazines,” said Johnson. “You have to know basic design stu , like where to put things on a page where your attention is drawn.”

Understanding how to use font and color as an artistic tool is crucial to the sta

“So it’s a lot of practice with the technical stu of it,” said Johnson. “And then we just do practice with photos and art, laying it out to make it look like a real magazine.” e theme is really for the group to work from,” Rucker said. “It is much easier to work with an idea in mind in terms of ‘how do you place visual and written works together? What kind of color palette might it be?’ and that kind of thing.”

Setting a due date for submissions is another priority for students.

“ e rst assignment was to design a poster for students to see, to submit with a due date of when they’re due,” said Rucker.

Sta members then advertise the magazine by scattering posters across campus, encouraging students to submit their work. e hunt for submissions includes several emails from the Montage editors-in-chief.

As pieces start owing in, the sta begins the process of reviewing submissions.

“We vote on the pieces as a sta , and so we put in whatever pieces that we really liked, and then we go from there,” said Mamdani.

During the review process, sta members also discuss ideas for a theme.

Iwasko said that not setting a theme prior to the deadline incentivizes students to submit their work. It also allows students to submit their previous works without worrying about tting into a theme.

“I think allowing people to have no boundaries or limits when they’re submitting their work leads to a much more authentic view of the student body,” said Iwasko. e sta then starts creating spreads, which is artwork laid across two pages. According to Mamdani, each sta member will be assigned a spread, pairing writing with a piece of visual art.

“We go over what everyone’s created,” she said. “We all give each other tips or things that we like about them so we can all improve each other’s spreads.” e sta also reviews Advanced Video Production lm stills shared with them by Upper School Fine Arts Department Chair Corbin Doyle.

“We usually put one to two people in charge of emailing all the AVP lmmakers and seeing who has interest in being interviewed,” Iwasko said. “We create the lm section out of those interviews, which typically highlight four lms.”

Another crucial piece in the production of Montage is choosing the cover for the magazine. e most compelling piece that best encompasses the selected theme is chosen.

“It’s de nitely a re ection of both the theme and just the book as a whole,” Iwasko said.

Once everything has come together, Rucker will print proofs for the class to review. e nal dra is then sent to the publisher, and the nished magazine is later distributed with the yearbook.

“I love seeing people that you didn’t even know did art or did really cool poetry,” Johnson said. “You get to see their submissions, and it’s really fun.”