About Milvia Street

Introduction

Milvia Street Retrospective

 Milvia Street art and literary journal began in 1989 when a group of then Vista Community College instructors decided that the students’ creative writing and artwork was too good to simply write a grade on and slip in a drawer.  The work needed to be shared.  The journal began in modest black and white chapbook form with a stapled binding.   It is a student edited and produced publication. Over the years with our Multimedia department, it turned into full fledged color book with perfect binding and over a hundred pages.  Peter Freund, who taught the Milvia Street design class for many years, set an even higher bar for the design of our journal.

Milvia Street has featured creative work by Berkeley City College students—many who have gone on to university writing or art programs—recent alumni, faculty and staff.  For many budding writers and artists, it’s the first of many publications that they work on or publish in.  In 1996 Milvia Street won national first place in the Literary Magazine Competition of the Community College Humanities Association, and since then has placed in the top three.

With the dissolution of all classes that were designed to produce this stunning journal, the quality of design and content has still been maintained in many ways though we struggle with funding printing and labor.  We currently anticipate the end of the print journal.  With these changes in sight, we decided to initiate a web-based journal with a retrospective of past journals to celebrate what we have accomplished.

If you’re interested in supporting our journal, please purchase a current or back issue at BCC’s Cashier’s Office, 2050 Center Street, Berkeley.  The current issue is also available at University Press Books in Berkeley and Pegasus Books in Berkeley. All purchases go to the printing of the final print issue.

Past and current issues can also be seen in the Berkeley History Room and the Berkeley Public Library and in the Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley.