You're about to read the inaugural issue of Quad. Before you do, we'd like to tell you what it is, and what we hope it will become.

Quad began in Fall 2008 as a small cohort of active students eager to carve out a niche in the Harpeth Hall writing community. First we staked out our territory, meeting in the private dining room every Wednesday during lunch. Together we developed a vision: a publication with a strong narrative element, a means for us to write about people and places outside of campus but within the greater Nashville community that we found fascinating. We faced the challenge of writers of fiction, aiming to make the seemingly mundane seem spectacular, and to make anomalous things relevant and relatable to the reader. At the same time, we had the responsibility of non-fiction writers, committed to accuracy and thorough interviews. We wanted our publication’s character to be as strong as its intellect, to borrow a phrase heard on Harpeth Hall’s own quad every spring amid white dresses and flowering magnolia buds. We chose the name “Quad” because we liked the connotations. Four quadrants make a complete circle. People gather on quads for both intellectual and social exchange. We figured “Quad” was perfect, hoping it would become a medium for writers and videographers alike to present stories that struck them as interesting, while still enjoying the benefits of a staff of editors. We chose to make Quad an online publication not just to eliminate paper waste, but also to make it more accessible to readers outside of Harpeth Hall and to provide a platform to budding multimedia storytellers.

We take a democratic approach to production. Any Quad staff member who doesn’t write a story for an issue comes in on a Saturday (or two, or three) to edit. Every story passes through several hands, and it’s this communal process that has made these seven stories so strong. Editors have been relentless, and writers have endured revisions with a kind of maturity you see in the professional writing world. People note that when athletes and artists are doing something they truly love, they forsake time and are utterly and happily lost in their activity. I learned this is true of writers as well during our Saturday sessions; as we kept long hours editing and designing in the Media Lab, we barely said a word to each other. Not only were we lost in our craft, we were lost together.

We urge you to read our stories. If you like what you read, talk to the students you know who are on the Quad staff; you’ll recognize their sense of achievement, and you might even want to check in with us during Wednesday lunch sometime soon. We want more contributors (especially freshmen!). Every time a new person joins the staff, we get a story about something that’s uniquely intriguing to her, and Quad grows in breadth and depth as a result. So enjoy our work, and by all means, let us know if you want to join the team.

--Kalen McNamara

Contributors

Adam Ross, Sponsor and Writer in Residence

Kalen McNamara & Patricia Gormley, Editors-in-Chief

Sarah Schutt

Willa Fitzgerald

Katie Schull

JaneMarie Brown

Grace Tipps

Claudia Crook

Emmy Weikert

Emily Hong

Monique Hagler

MaryLynne Graham

Kate Wiseman

Natalie Brewer

Grace Cummings

Joanna McCall

Cara Moses

Parker Davis

Annalee Mueck, writers & editors

Special thanks to Paul Ward for Web site construction. We greatly appreciate your generosity with your time and talents. Justin Dover for the time it took to allocate server space and the Jing tutorial. Ann Teaff and Jess Hill for green lighting the project and their time vetting the material. The Logos staff for sharing their work space and showing us the ropes of production. Finally, Bruce Dobie for his encouraging critique of our stories.