The first-ever launch party for Working Draft Magazine showcased this year’s edition of the student-produced magazine
By: Georgia Sigurdson
Working Draft, a web magazine produced by students in the Creative Communications program, held it’s first-ever launch party at Red River College Polytechnic’s Exchange District Campus on April 4.
Working Draft publishes long-form articles, often with accompanying multimedia content, written by second-year students in the Creative Communications program. While the publication was first created in 2020, previous launch events weren’t possible due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Advertising and Marketing Communications student Emily Sikora’s work was featured at the event. Sikora, whose first year of classes were delivered online, said she was excited to be able to share her work with her peers in person.
“I think it’s important for people to be able to socialize with each other and, like, get to meet each other interpersonally and get to see each other’s work,” Sikora said.
The event was organized by second-year Creative Communications students who are specializing in Public Relations and Communication Management. Sikora said the event felt very classy, and that she appreciated how much work the public relations students put into it.
“The speeches were really heartfelt and touching, too,” Sikora said.
Noah Cote, a graduate of the Creative Communications program, said he was excited to see the students’ work. Cote described the feeling of being able to display your coursework as limitless.
“Writing and creating, it’s a very personal, very vulnerable thing,” Cote said. “Being able to, like, get that out in front of eyes, in front of industry eyes, whether that’s peers or your teachers or anything, like, that’s what it’s all about.”
Emily Cain, one of Working Draft‘s faculty advisors, said the magazine was created as a way to give students a long-term, researched-based writing project, and to develop their writing and editing skills.
“We knew that that the deepest learning would happen if these things could come together in a real project,” Cain said in a speech at the launch party.
Throughout the event, attendees were encouraged to complete tasks on a bingo card. Some tasks included wearing a name tag, adding a new connection on LinkedIn and visiting a multimedia room to listen to audio recordings of the students’ work.
The 2023 edition of Working Draft is available for reading at 2023.workingdraftmagazine.com.
