Krishna Pattisapu wants her readers to know that sometimes less is more.

For this reason, the Grassroots Undergraduate Literary Magazine has published only one volume instead of the publication’s usual two this school year.

Pattisapu, a senior from Mt. Vernon studying speech communication and the magazine’s editor, said only publishing one volume gave the editors a chance to include more work from students.

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“The new issue is nearly two and half times the size of just one of the issues from previous years,” Pattisapu said.

Kathleen Richards, a junior from River Forrest studying English, said only putting out one issue gave the Grassroots staff extra time to create a more artistic finished product.

“It definitely looks a lot cooler,” Richards said.

Pattisapu said this year the staff made a conscious effort to focus more on the visual arts section. She said she wanted to emphasize that the publication is for all artists, not just writers.

Richards said they usually just put out the new Grassroots issues on the day they debut, but this year the staff wanted a bit of fanfare for the newest issue.

The Grassroots staff plans to hold a launch party for the new volume, today from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Faner courtyard.

Pattisapu said funding for the publication comes solely from the fine arts activity fee. This issue cost just less than $8,000, which was under what they had originally budgeted at the beginning of the year. Richards said the extra money left over enabled the staff to throw the launch party.

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“(The magazine) is a big deal to our university’s aspiring writers, photographers and artists,” said Lauren Lamb, a senior form Seneca studying speech communication.

The courtyard is located across from the College of Liberal Arts office. Pattisapu said green signs would lead partygoers in the right direction, because the courtyard might be difficult to find.

Richards said the party would offer free food and drinks and there would be an open mic in case people want to read selections from the new Grassroots issue.

“It’s not required though,” Richards said. “A lot of people are shy.”

Lamb said artists, writers and photographers of all kinds could start submitting their work for the 2009 Grassroots issue to [email protected].

Luke McCormick can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 254 or [email protected].