ABSENCE: A Celebration of the Arts

ABSENCE: Penn State Greater Allegheny's Literary & Visual Art Review announces its 2013 ?Celebration of the Arts: A Reading & Reception for Volume 15,? from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, April 24, in the Ostermayer Room of the Student Community Center, with a 6 p.m. kickoff  by the Campus Band.

The event will feature the best literary and visual art produced by members of the campus community during the past year. The event also will celebrate the arts with live performances from the campus choir and drama club, and scenes from the spring theatre production, "Merlin in the Middle ? of the King Arthur Legend," which takes place at 7:30 p.m. from April 25 - 27, in the FCC Theatre. The eighth annual Chancellor?s Prizes for the Best Literary and Visual Art will be presented by Chancellor Curtiss Porter. This event is free and open to the public. Complementary copies of this year's issue, Volume 15, will be available in print for the first time, featuring twenty pages of full-color art and a special section dedicated to this year?s Teaching International themes, the Celtic Nations and Water.

Published by the student-operated Penn State Greater Allegheny Press, ABSENCE is a high-quality literary and visual arts review for the Greater Allegheny and surrounding community. The review?s goal is to provide all full- and part-time students, faculty, staff and alumni with a shared venue for their creative endeavors, and to generate interest in the arts. ABSENCE also prepares students for careers in academia, publishing and journalism, and document design -- both paper and digital -- while offering opportunities for students to earn Penn State credit for editorial work. Several student editors have gone on to careers in publishing and academia.

The student editors led by Editor-in-Chief Courtney Handlovitch, invited faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the campus to submit their poetry, short fiction and nonfiction, essays, photography, visual art, etc. for consideration. A ?blind submission? process is used by the student editorial board to evaluate each work. All student submissions were eligible for consideration for the Chancellor?s Prizes, which were established in 2006 to promote the growth of an active creative community in and around Penn State Greater Allegheny.

?ABSENCE is a great place for artists, whether budding or more experienced, to submit their creative work, and to have it permanently displayed. The students on the editorial staff have worked hard to produce a quality issue,? said Clifford Manlove, associate professor of English and ABSENCE faculty adviser since 2002. He added, ?This year?s art is exceptional, too. We are looking forward to a great reception for the unveiling of the review.?