While Yale boasts a number of undergraduate publications, none have catered to those interested in foreign language literature. Now, ROM — a new Romance language literary magazine — will fill that void.
ROM will accept literary works in all Romance languages but will specifically focus on four — Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. The magazine will accept works of all genres, from poetry to short stories to plays. With the deadline for submissions set at Feb. 28, ROM editor in chief and founder Natalia Noguera ’05 said the first issue will be published by the end of the semester.
The magazine has garnered interest from Yale’s language departments. Rosalinda Garcia, Yale College assistant dean and dean of the Latino and Native American cultural centers, said she is excited about ROM’s potential.
“The group seems to be very enthusiastic about it and they have been working very hard to get it going,” Garcia said. “I do believe there’s an audience for a magazine of this type and I wish the group much success.”
ROM editors said the magazine will give more accessible literary opportunities to native Romance language speakers and Romance language students at Yale.
“[Another language] gives you such a license to express yourself in so many ways” Noguera said. “And here at Yale, I felt that I was constricted [by the current literary scene].”
The new magazine will also allow students to write on subjects they feel more comfortable writing about in a Romance language, as opposed to English.
“Writing in another language is an interesting experience” said Pablo Landa ’05, editor of the Spanish component of the magazine. “Once you know a language, you can understand a literary work in a completely different way.”
The magazine will also give students studying Romance languages at Yale an opportunity to practice writing outside the classroom, ROM Italian editor Serena Crivellaro ’06 said.
“[ROM is] a way for native English speakers to further their knowledge of a foreign language in a way that’s not graded,” Crivellaro said.
Landa said Yale is ready for a Romance language publication because of its large number of international students and students learning Romance languages.
“There is really a need to do this,” he said.
The editors of ROM did not create the title as an acronym. Instead, they selected the name because the English word “Romance,” when translated into French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, all have the same first three letters — ROM.
“While the ending of the word ‘Romance’ changes in each language, the first three letters stay the same” Noguera said.