Julia Rosenbaum ‘19
Rachel Lu: How did you get involved with the literary community at Hamilton and how did you get involved with Red Weather specifically? When you became head editor, was there a specific vision that you had for Red Weather?
Julia Rosenbaum: I knew coming to Hamilton that I really wanted to be part of a literary scene since I had been in my high school and I had led the magazine at my high school by the end as well. I came to campus as a Jan, and I immediately submitted some work and had my first piece published. I really loved the whole process of reading my work in front of people, having that celebration and that small community around literature. I had, growing up over the summers in school, gone to college programs like the University of Iowa or the University of Virginia to do writing programs and found incredible communities through that, so one of the reasons I chose Hamilton was because it was known for its strong writing curriculum, the Writing Center, and so I was hoping that I could find another literary community there. And that really parlayed into what my vision was for this magazine, which was a way to bring people together around creative expression whether that be through writing, art, visual art, video, whatever it is. And I found, and I'm of course curious to hear what you think, Rachel, but I found it to be somewhat difficult to facilitate that community because when I arrived, I felt like Red Weather was a bit of a sequestered, elite social group, and either you didn't have access to it or you didn't want to have access to it. There wasn't much fluidity because I think it was trying to take itself seriously which I think there's definitely space for. I think it should not be a publication where anyone can get their work in, but at the same time, I really wanted it to be an area where people can connect with other people over the fact that they liked to express themselves creatively and liked to interact with the world in a creative way because not everybody is like that. Not everybody finds so much joy and depth and color through having a creative expression, but there are people who do, and I didn't feel like Hamilton's campus did the best job at facilitating community around that. So this was my one venue, and it felt like it did its work in some ways and not always in others.
RL: Yeah, absolutely, I think that was one of my main priorities going into the editorship. Well, there were two main things I wanted to focus on immediately. One was creating a website and the other was creating a community around Red Weather. It's been really difficult to do so, I think, because the board used to be super big, so I don't know if it's something about a bigger group of people that makes it inherently hard to connect. Maybe it's because we only have one mandatory meeting per semester, so there's no forced bonding. But yeah, I agree, I was also a little disappointed after I came in. I really loved writing and really wanted to be part of the college lit mag and had hoped there would be this really strong artistic community, not just through Red Weather but in general. I think there are people on campus who are super artsy, but I feel like there's less of a one single community around the arts.
JR: Yeah, I completely agree.
RL: But it is interesting that you mention the elitist part because I had heard that a lot my first year that Red Weather was very elitis, but I never felt that way when I was there or in my past three years. But I don't know, maybe that's just gone over my head and it is elitist and I'm just not aware of it.
JR: That makes me happy because I feel like that was one big thing that when I was, not that I'm the person that changed it, but once I took that position, I did not want it to feel like a shitting contest. And now there's this kind of, there's a whole thing within MFA programs where some of them are trying to move away from or really tightly structure the workshop model. I'm not even in this field, but I was just hearing, because a lot of people use the workshop model as a way to say, “This is what's wrong with your work, and this is why I'm better,” instead of it being a space where you can constructively talk about what you're noticing and what could be different, what could be improved on. The thing that killed me when I was in these meetings was hearing people rip apart my work and make assumptions about my intentions. I was like, you have no idea who writes these stories or these poems. How could you assume some kind of intention? So it would be like, someone would say, "Oh, I bet they didn't even look into this," or something like that, or "This is cliché," and these are very personal words. Even if a text is not strong, you're not going to say that.
I remember when I was co-editor-in-chief, we had one guy, I don't remember who it is now, but he was on the board and he really immediately, his technique—he was a freshman—was to strongly critique the work in kind of a rude way. We had to keep interrupting and being like, "No, we're not going to talk about it like this." I think he just left after that because he was pissed, but that is not what this is about. If anything, in a school like Hamilton where there really is a strange—I don't really know if Hamilton knows what it's trying to be. I feel like there's no core identity, and so there's always that search for something to connect people. I don't know if it always works for everybody, but I do think that what Hamilton has going for it is that it's small and people can connect. I felt like I had a lot of close friends there and so it's like, if you're one out of the, maybe it seems like, few people who’s open about what they do creatively, you might as well be kind and accepting to the other people, so you can create a strong community around that instead of putting up walls and trying to assume that, oh, I'm in this echelon of creativity and they're in that lower echelon of creativity. Such a waste of energy.
RL: Absolutely. I remember that being a point that you and Hunter [Lewinksi] had brought up early on, just being like, don't attack the writer or make assumptions about them but just critique the work. But I think, though, that one thing that really differentiates the board discussions versus workshops in classes is that people are more honest in Red Weather, probably because it's all anonymous and you don't know who the writer is. Sometimes, that can be negative and it can lead to these ad hominem attacks on the authors, but sometimes, I think, it is refreshing to see people's real perspectives. Because I feel like whenever I was in a workshop class, people were always like, "Oh, this was really great," even if that's not how they truly felt.
JR: Right. No, absolutely, there's so much value to a workshop that's done right, when you can say, "What I'm noticing in the writer's work is this and what could make it even more interesting is maybe something like this.” There's so many socially appropriate ways to be honest that aren't making assumptions. One of the best things that people can do during a workshop, or people did when I was leading, was, well, the best part was all of us analyzing it, right. So first it was like, what does this mean, what's the craft to get this meaning, and once that was established, it was like, well, are all the parts of the craft serving the purpose, are they serving the meaning? And there have been situations when I was on the board or when I was leading when the writer was in the room and afterwards they would be like, "That's not what that was about." And there's all these other ways to talk about it. But it doesn't have to be, as you're saying, it doesn't have to be one or the other. It doesn't have to be like, "I'm going to tear this apart," and it also doesn't also have to be like, "Oh, everything's so great, oh my god, I just love your imagery” when that's not what they mean.
RL: [laughs] They always say, "I love your imagery."
JR: [laughs] Classic.
RL: So what is your favorite memory from Red Weather?
JR: There are a lot. I think the best was really my senior year when I was leading with Hunter because he and I worked really well together and when we threw a party—we threw one party, and it was really fun at the beginning of the year, just bringing people together and that was kind of, if I had put more of that kind of effort, like the vision of what I wanted it to be where you could talk about these things after hours. But then it was really fun when we did a collab with The [Daily] Bull, and we did a monochrome party and everyone was wearing one-color outfits and that was what I didn't get to see a ton of at Hamilton was the creativity translated into other activities that are not just school-related or not just scholastic. That was a culture that I wanted to be more there. And of course after we had that night, it was over, but those were good memories. Even little meetings that Hunter and I would lead or updates with people, it was always fun to be surrounded by people who really wanted to be there and laugh at myself as I was up in front of the room. It was really special.
Eva Glassman: Rachel and I have been trying to figure out how to have parties and gatherings and stuff, just because for the past year or so, year and a half, we haven't been able to do anything because of the pandemic. That was crazy. Last year was my first year as co-editor and I did it all from home while Rachel was on campus and it was a very interesting experience.
JR: Oh, no. That sounds terrible.
EG: Yeah, it was. It was really hard, especially when we were laying out the magazine. It was just Rachel and the media suite, and then I was just on FaceTime and then she would be on the computer and she'd share a screen with me so I could see what she was doing. I would just have to give her a thumbs up or thumbs down.
JR: Oh my god!
EG: It was very tedious. How has Red Weather influenced where you are now in your life, and your career path?
JR: Well, I'm an English teacher, so obviously there's some remnants there, but I do find my day-to-day work to be extremely different than anything that had to do with Red Weather. I think the way that it still influences me is that one thing that Red Weather really did for me was keep me accountable to producing work on a consistent basis. When I was on the board or when I was leading, I was like, "Ooh, I know the deadline is coming up," so all these things that I would want to write about but would otherwise put off, I just had to start to writing and I had to start editing what I've been writing. That was a way to keep me accountable and now, I still almost have that cyclical clock in my head where I know, it's not like I'm submitting to a publication necessarily, but it makes me want to produce consistently and consume media that is of the same nature, so that it inspires me to produce creatively. I have gotten one thing published in a small magazine and when I have a breath from work, I try to think about other things that I might want to submit. But to summarize a very long answer, it just inspires that consistency with artistic production that I might not otherwise be consistent.
EG: I feel like college is a period of time that's very focused on yourself and self-development and stuff like that, and you don't get a solid chunk of time like that after that, really. So I think there is truth to that, but yeah, I get what you mean. It bothers me when people say, “Oh, don't wish it away!” I would hope to think that there are better things to come in my life! I am barely in my twenties, so.
JR: No, I feel the same way, thinking back to Red Weather, the way that I felt, I used to write more back then, because I felt like I had the time and I felt like life was a story that was about me, you know? I would write poetry in between writing papers, and now I barely have the time to write. I do, if it's a very intentional point of time—maybe I've gone on a really meaningful walk, I've heard a really meaningful piece in the Paris Review when I'm like, “Now I feel like I can write this piece.” I've been meaning to write. I've been trying to write a piece about being a teacher for a long time, but I find it really hard to. So, I think to your point, because you're really focused on yourself in college, it has different opportunities in that respect.
EG: And what has your experience being a teacher been like?
JR: It's so widely different than anything that's going on when you're a student, weirdly enough. I really went into it thinking, "Oh, I hope this isn't too repetitive," and it couldn't be further away from repetitive. I'm working in a public school—well, actually, this year I'm working at a charter, but I worked in public schools and it's a very, very challenging job, it's a very special job, it's a job that's filled with a lot of emotion and love and sadness. I think it's the most emotional that I've probably ever felt in something that was supposed to be work. I don't think that was the relationship I had with producing essays. I think one of the hardest things about teaching was that unlike a creative work of art or an assignment, it does matter how much work you put in, but at the end of the day, teaching is like putting on a performance where your ability to continue the performance is contingent upon the audience. It's kind of like what an actual play is. If I don't put on the performance correctly, based on things I can't control right, whatever happens to the kids before they got to school today, whatever happens before last class, if one of those elements is off, then that affects the whole thing. And I think something that I miss about producing work creatively or producing work academically is that it's a fixed product. You hand it in and it's fixed, but nothing about teaching is fixed. Everything is moving and in flux and totally teetering on the edge of stable and unstable. And it's a great job, don't get me wrong, I do love it, but it's a completely different entity than being at school.
RL: Who is your favorite writer/artist in college, and who is your favorite artist now?
JR: I went into college really liking Donna Tartt and ended up reading Faulkner with [Benjamin] Widiss. I don't know if I would say that Faulkner is one of my favorites. He's really complicated. It was honestly a headache, but it was cool. During college, I really loved Toni Morrison and wrote a lot about her and now, I don't even know. Do I read anymore? I tend to like, not Dickens himself, but writers who, like Dickens, really master their ability to describe life in all its colors, and so I feel like I go through authors all the time. I don't even know what I'm even keeping track of anymore. I haven't even really read consistently from one author recently, but I continue to like those writers. Who have I read recently? Susan Choi, that was great. I also love Emily Dickinson. When I got this job, my first teaching job or the residency, I did a lesson on Emily Dickinson, it was one of her poems. I actually do read more poetry now than probably fiction. I really like Adrienne Rich.
RL: So you read more modern poetry than contemporary poetry?
JR: Yeah, yeah. I feel like it's that thing where people are like, "Oh, you read a lot, who are your favorites?" and I'm like, "I don't know." Okay, my list is not here, but I do really like Adrienne Rich. James Baldwin is an incredible writer, but I read more of his essays. Maya Angelou. There's been a couple more contemporary people I've been writing down recently, but—oh! And Ocean Vuong. What the fuck am I talking about. Ocean Vuong is, I think, the best contemporary poet out there. He's amazing. So I guess he would be my top.
RL: Great. I mean asking this question is difficult. I don't know if I would have a favorite either, but Ocean Vuong is always really great.
JR: Do you have any recommendations?
RL: Oh god. I don't know. I have not read a book outside my theses books in so long because I've just been rereading them over and over. But I would say if you liked slash kind of enjoyed Faulkner and what he was doing and you also liked Toni Morrison, I would highly recommend Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor. It's a pretty brutal book. It's set in Mexico, contemporary day. It's similar to Morrison and Faulkner in that it has that cyclical narrative that's going on, but it looks at all the systemic violence and homophobia and transphobia and misogyny and all of the phobias in that setting, in this very poor town of Mexico. It's very brutal but so beautifully written and so good. I would definitely recommend that one if you liked Morrison and Faulkner.
JR: Sounds great. I'll definitely check it out.
RL: Is there anything else that I haven't asked you about that you wanted to say?
JR: I guess one thing is that I felt like it was really limited when I was there, I felt like I was pushing for more creativity, but, not that anyone is asking for my advice, but I think when you actually go into the world, it actually takes even more work to speak out like creative communities if you're within a creative field. And so I think that if I were to talk to myself back then when I was leading Red Weather, I would've just been like, "You know, you should really just enjoy this as much as possible and just relish in it" and I'm actually thinking about joining a writing class or art class because it's something that, it's just funny to even answer questions about because it reminds me of being in a place where I was like, "Whoa, there actually is this group of people who want to talk about this." And I didn't even really notice it's not in my life, but it's not right now. I would say it's a special thing. It's a special magazine. I think the traditions are something to be valued.
RL: Absolutely. I've been thinking about that a lot as I finish up the halfway mark of my senior year and have been getting kind of emo. Because college in general, having that very specific community that you don't really get outside of college.
JR: Exactly. It is emo. I remember I was really like, "Eaugh," but you know, there's all these ups and downs to being there and then to not, but, you know, definitely enjoy it as much as possible.