Our Crowdfunding Groups
Who We Are
Helicon is Northwestern's premier literary and arts magazine, publishing the best in student art twice a year with submissions from poetry and prose, music and videos, to visual art and multimedia works. Our mission is to advance the appreciation of student art and literary creations within Northwestern and its surrounding communities through the publication of the magazine and fostering of a community around the arts. Founded in 1979, we celebrated the publication of our 40th-anniversary issue last year and consist of a 31-member staff.
Our Project
Helicon's primary means of advancing the appreciation of student art and literary creations is through our magazine, which is published once in the winter and once in the spring, with one being a print issue and the other being a digital issue published on our website. The print issue, which is distributed around campus in the spring, is a critical part of Helicon's purpose and has been since the group’s creation over 40 years ago.
The creation of the magazine involves the collective decisions of each of our three staffs: art, poetry, and prose. Putting the magazine together allows us to have conversations about what makes a poem beautiful, make passionate defenses for a particular piece of art, and communally appreciate the way a song can move us. Every year, when our magazine is officially published, we hold a free open mic night, where student creators and anyone else who wants to join, performs their pieces for audience members. We are also intentional about the selection of a diverse body of art, from oil paintings to interactive digital stories that combine music, art, and writing, to represent the variety of ways students choose to express themselves in their art.
Why We Need Your Help
Helicon just became an independent student organization this past winter. Previously, we were affiliated and financially supported by the Residential College Board (RCB) and had been since our creation. However, budget cuts prevented us from receiving the money we needed to create our print magazine from RCB, and we decided to transition to independence. Because this is our first year as an independent group, we are starting from scratch financially. This is a critical period in our group’s history in which we need to establish a firm financial foundation for our future activities, primarily the publication of the spring print issue.
How You Can Help
Help us keep printing our magazine for 40 more years by:
Honor Helicon’s long legacy with a gift that harkens to the year of Helicon’s birth.
Our helicon.northwestern.edu website domain fee for a whole year.
