Author Description

Purdue Northwest's literary journal, Furnace, originated from two writing competitions, the Stark-Tinkham Writing Contest and Portals. Portals began in 1972 on the Purdue North Central campus. Professor Barbara Lootens launched Portals in order to give students, staff, and alumni a space to share their creative writing. In 2017, the final publication of Portals was released, which also marked its 45th year in existence. The Stark-Tinkham Writing Contest, named after two former Purdue Calumet professors, Sigrid Stark, the first head of Purdue Calumet's English department, and Charles Tinkham, writing instructor and poet, began in 1973 to celebrate and reward students and recent alumni of the Calumet campus. Today, Furnace is a student-led publication, with the aid of Dr. Bethany Lee and S.E. White, featuring work from students, staff, and alumni. These submissions include poetry, visual art, creative nonfiction, short fiction, and general essays. Over the course of the journal's creation, students are directly involved in reading and scoring submissions, editing pieces, designing the format, and finalizing the issue. The 2018 issue features contributions from Tiffani Arnold, Donavan Barrier, Samantha Behenna, Gavin Coppage, Alexia Dukes, Karac Fulk, Sabrina Haddad, Cody Hendershott, Niel Jacoby, Angelina Kapetanov, Brookelynne Kesler, Paige Lacey, Kayla Ludington, Abbie Michaels, Tara Pierce, Jacqueline Rans, Brooke Regier, Zachery Robbins, Stephanie Sivak, Steven Stepnoski, Jennifer Stockton, Teeal Sucacin, Brenna Uporsky, Gina Webber, Loren Ezra Whitman