Find your place

Arizona Daily Wildcat You Are Here: features writings from faculty and students within the Department of Geography and Regional Development, and other academic departments on campus.

"I can't think of anything that isn't in a place," said Ane Schjolden, a geography and regional development graduate student. "Place matters."

Taking that idea of their discipline, a group of geography and regional development graduate students had an idea to create a journal of creative work. You Are Here, the premiere issue, came out yesterday; the smooth-paged book contains essays, poetry, photos and reflections from Tucson writers such as Alison Deming, director of the Poetry Center, Jim Griffith, former head of the Southwest Center for Folklore, Ofelia Zepeda, a professor of linguistics, and Gary Paul Nabhan, director of science at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, as well as contributors from other parts of the country.

"There are lots of academic journals and lots of literary journals; we wanted something to kind of bridge the two together," explained Kimi Eisele, also a geography and regional development graduate student, and the editor of the journal.

"It's unique in the sense that you don't usually get this sort of thing out of other departments (other than English)," said Eisele. "It encourages academics to do things a little differently."

The pages of You Are Here travel all over; down Route 66, through North Dakota, across mountains, and back to Tucson. Brief stops in Hawaii, road trips along the Sea of Cortez; meditations on Kansas and geography in general. People writing about where they are and how that is affecting them: "Geography introduces itself when I see what it was I was living in," wrote Kathleen Veslany, a recent Tucson import, in "Where Distance Makes Past Perfect."

You Are Here is divided into sections in which different types of perspectives are given of geography. The journal is cross-disciplinary; pieces are written by not only poets and creative writers but also by scientists, people who would normally report on their studies through quantitative analysis. Schjolden explained that the journal seeks to cover the "domain of geography that geography doesn't display." Here you have artistic and creative interpretations of science. "The study might be interesting scientifically, but we're more interested in how it is personally," said Eisele.

Eisele said that the group plans to put out the journal twice a year; the response they received to their first call for submissions was so positive that they already have pieces for the next issue. You Are Here will be distributed nationally, to geography and English departments. Copies can be obtained through the office of the Department of Geography and Regional Development, or by calling 626-8136.

Tonight, come witness a celebratory first-issue reading by Alison Deming, Kathleen Veslany and Ofelia Zepeda, at Christine's Motion Picture, 187 N. Park Ave., from 7:30- 9:30 p.m. The reading is free, but a donation of $4 for a copy of You Are Here is suggested.