Student Richard Barnhart seeks to fulfill dream of publishing many forms of art
It’s difficult to create something when you constantly put it aside. When you finally find someone to help you complete your goal it’s truly bliss.
Richard Barnhart, English major at American River College, was able to fulfill such a dream. Barnhart self-published his first ever magazine The Gap-Toothed Madness on March 1.
“It’s been probably about five or six years that I’ve really seriously been thinking about doing it,” Barnhart said. “I honestly just procrastinated. It kind of seemed intimidating to me getting the whole thing started.”
Barnhart is currently Associate Editor-in-Chief of the American River Review and was a senior editor at the Susan Valley Review at Solano Community College.
“I’ve always loved to write,” Barnhart said. “It’s something I’ve been involved with for years and it’s always been my passion to do my own.”
Barnhart was able to accomplish his goal when he met his partner, ARC student Brittany Wright, who was able to help him get his act together. She is currently the Managing Publisher for The Gap-Toothed Madness and handles the website and social media part of the magazine.
“When I got together with Brittany she kind of lit the fire and once we got started it went much better than I thought it would,” Barnhart said.
“I read it in a book somewhere, but I couldn’t say exactly where I got it,” Barnhart said about the name. “I was thinking about a couple different names and that one line kind of stood out to me as being sort of interesting and unique.”
The Gap-Toothed Madness accepts submissions from aspiring artists and writers. They accept poetry, short fiction essays, all kinds of art photography and digital art. There is no set content restriction, they accept whatever the writer or artist feels is their best work and go from there.
Putting together the magazine is tedious process for Barnhart and Wright.
“It’s very time consuming networking and soliciting for the submissions,” Barnhart said. “That’s really the biggest task is letting people know about the magazine and getting those submissions in. Then after that we have to edit the magazine for content, which takes some time making sure we’re only putting the best we have in there and the printing and the construction of the book is fairly simple it’s just time consuming.”
It is a quarterly magazine and the last day to submit for the next issue is May 1, but they accept submissions all the time. The next issue comes out June 1, and you can purchase copies of their first issue on their website gaptoothedmadness.com for $5 plus shipping and handling.
Barnhart and Wright have plans to get the paper in the hands of more people, but as of now it’s difficult because it is just the two of them.
“What we would like to do in the near future is start getting our books into local bookstores and record stores to get it out there,” Barnhart said.
