The 2014-2015 issue of Menagerie won first place with special merit from the American Scholastic Press Association (ASPA) for the seventh time in the last 10 years. It was one of five literary magazines nationwide to receive such a high honor, selected from a pool of around 300 applicants in December 2015. In addition, Jack Kunkle’s ‘14 “The Comic Man”, which was featured in Menagerie, won “Outstanding Story” from ASPA, the only national story to do so.

“Because Menagerie has such an amazing track record, there’s definitely a lot of pressure because you want to continue that tradition of greatness,” last year’s editor-in-chief Anika Ranginani ‘15 said. “It was a great feeling to know that all the hard work payed off.”

Menagerie also won a gold medal from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA), and the highest award from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Both awards received were based on layout, design, content and the overall flow of the magazine.

“The thing that specifically set last year apart was there was a real focus on using the magazine to showcase the art and writing of our students,” Menagerie co-advisor Joseph Maffey said. “It’s very easy to over-design a page. The goal is to make sure people stop and look at each individual piece of work.”

This year, the theme for the magazine will be “multiplicity”. Editor-in-Chief Natalie Krause ‘16, having an extensive background in art, hopes to continue the theme of allowing each designer’s individual self shine through on each page, while still focusing the overall magazine on the individual pieces of art and written work.

“We are pretty ahead of the game this year,” Krause said. “We’ve even had some mock-ups for page designs finished since November, which doesn’t usually happen until much later in the production cycle around March. We’re in a really good spot for this year.”

Menagerie’s editors meet after school during second semester Monday through Thursday. Despite this large time commitment and the extensive amount of work put in by the staff, both Krause and Ranginani emphasize that the immense success Menagerie has experienced in the past decade would not have been possible without the help of the LT community.

“I think the core of what makes Menagerie really great is the fact that we have so many talented writers and artists at LT,” Ranginani said. “It takes a lot of dedication from the staff to get that to come across on the page, but we’re starting off with some really special pieces of art and writing and that helps give us that edge over other magazines. Without the LT community supporting the magazine, all this wouldn’t be possible.”

This year’s issue will be finished and ready to distribute to every student in late May.