Grad students broadcast a literary journal

Aaron Sander, foreground, and Ken Cormier, doctoral students in English, co-host The Lumberyard, a new radio magazine for writers and musicians, at the WHUS studio. Photo by Peter Morenus

Imagine experiencing the best of the literary world right at your very fingertips-no paper cuts required.

English Ph.D. candidates Ken Cormier and Aaron Sanders are channeling the most talented of aspiring writers and musicians as co-editors of their new radio magazine, The Lumberyard

The program mirrors the intricacies of a typical literary journal. "We work very hard to create the format that simulates the experience of leafing through a literary magazine. The array of voices and music each week form a sort of sound collage." Cormier said.

"We want The Lumberyard to be a place where new and unpublished writing and new and unreleased songs could find a home. While we also feature some published and established poets and authors, the main mission of the show is to give those up-and-coming writers and artists an audience they might not otherwise reach," Cormier said.

"The title The Lumberyard brings up the idea of raw materials," he said. This is not an understatement. The substance of the show is the brilliant, appropriately eccentric contributions by undergraduate and graduate students. Likewise, the program's musical features are usually local musicians in the early stages of their careers.

"Radio listeners are the right audience. [After hearing the selections] The mind is left to fill in the visual gaps-that's where the magic is," Sanders added.

Speaking of magic, consider these Connecticut writers, all of whom have been featured in The Lumberyard thus far: Ann Charters, Marilyn Nelson, Sam Pickering, Pit Pinegar, and Penelope Pelizzon. Sound familiar? You may recognize some of these names to be UConn's finest professors.

The 30-minute program is featured biweekly on WHUS radio, 91.7 FM, a University-endorsed broadcasting service. There are three ways to listen to The Lumberyard including: Radio WHUS, a streaming audio from www.whus.org , or a podcast obtained from www.thelumberyardjournal.com . Upcoming broadcasts on WHUS are at 5 p.m. on March 7 and 21, April 4 and 18, and May 2.