Stylus Creative Arts Magazine

Stylus—A Brief History

The publication history of Stylus, MTC’s student creative works magazine, begins in 1988 with the first literary annual at Midlands Technical College, called Starshine. Starshine was founded and edited by Maurice Duperre, Professor in MTC’s English Department.

By 1989-90, the publication was re-named Stylus and had grown into a full-fledged 40-60 page print magazine made possible by collaborations across MTC and its Midlands community. Dr. Reid A. Holland, History Professor and then Vice President for Educational Affairs, wrote the grant that originally supported publication. MTC’s Commercial Graphics Department produced and printed the then-physical magazine, supported by Marketing and Production Services areas. Creative writers and artists from across the college contributed works, including students and faculty from Associate in Arts, Business Management, Commercial Graphics, Criminal Justice Technology, Engineering, Graphics Technology, English, Information Resource Management, Nursing, Radiologic Technology, and Respiratory Therapy. Community leaders served as Stylus judges, including for many years Rhett Jackson, owner of The Happy Bookseller, an independent bookstore in operation in Columbia, SC from 1974-2008.

Stylus’s excellence was quickly recognized by grant awards from the South Carolina Arts Commission and awards from the Community College Humanities Association in the early 1990s.

From 1989 – 2000, Stylus remained a traditional print publication, under the editorship of English Department Professors Les Turner (1989-1992), Curtis Derrick (1992-1994), Keith Higginbotham (1994-2007), and Travis Gordon (2006-2009). Several editions also featured Student Editors: Christopher Watts (1997-1998), Ana Kellett (1998-1999), and Dawn Bozard (1999-2000).

At the turn of the new millennium, the 2000-2001 edition of Stylus featured a creative website competition, and published the winning URL: "An Introduction to Hypertext Fiction" by winners Karen Kustafik, Scott Serbin, and Jason Warren. (Unfortunately that website is no longer active.) From 2001-2006 Stylus was published in print form, but also digitally available on MTC’s server and website. From 2010-2019 under the editorship of English Professor Scott Compton, Stylus became a fully digital magazine hosted on the Issu website. Stylus then moved to a WordPress publication from 2020-present under the editorship of English Professor Jared Demick.