Metea Valley’s literary magazine ‘Mustang Wild’ has been active for five years, and its editors have produced several different editions of their magazine within that time. Mustang Wild gave opportunities to creative authors, artists, and poets to express their talents to the school community. At the same time, it offered entertainment and amusement to those that read it. For the years that it has been in operation, Mustang Wild has been one of the main hubs for all creative writing and artistry to prosper.

“It is a lot of fun just to see all the talent and all the students put their talent out there and have them get that exposure,” Mustang Wild editor junior Jyo Jadhav said.

Mustang Wild has faced an immense amount of resistance throughout publication. For one, the club was unable to publish a physical copy of the magazine during the 2020-2021 school year due to quarantine limitations. Despite all of the efforts of the editors, the club could not obtain the resources necessary due to COVID-19. However, the editors and English teacher Tiffany Gervasio managed to pull together an online interactive substitute instead.

“Last year, we used Lucidpress to put the planned paper copy onto the internet, so that the labor of our club members and submitters would not go to waste,” Mustang Wild sponsor Diane Meyer said.

Mustang Wild has also faced pressure from other directions, namely the subtle loss of manpower in the team over the years. During the 2017-2018 school year, the club had over fifteen students working on the magazine and distributing workloads so that no one had too much on their plate. This school year, the club has a grand total of two students, Jadhav and sophomore Venkata Sri Saiveer Chelliboyina.

“If we had more people we could definitely expand, have different teams, and advertise more, so more people would know about our [club],” Chelliboyina said. “Just having a bigger scope, in general, would be [great].”

Gervasio, one of the teachers that oversee the club, disagrees with the sentiment that Mustang Wild is understaffed.

“No, I do not [think so],” Gervasio said when asked whether she believed their club had too few people. “I have a great sponsor that works with me, and together we have all the resources we need, except for maybe being able to raise some money with fundraisers I suppose.”

One thing Gervasio felt strongly about was expressing the club’s gratitude to Metea’s administration, more specifically assistant principal Daniel DeBruycker. She stated that his patience, understanding, and empathy towards the Mustang Wild team were admirable.

“He could easily pull the plug on our club and say ‘Oh, you guys only have two members, it is bleeding into our budget, etc.,’ ” Gervasio said. “But he does not. He knows that it is special to the kids in it and that it gives voice to writers throughout the school. I think that that is absolutely worthy of praise.”

Whether it be staffing issues, a lack of recognition, or trouble publishing the magazine in the first place, Mustang Wild has not failed to find a workaround or a solution to their problems. Their persistence and dedication to their niche club are unstoppable.

If there was one universal desire that the members of Mustang Wild held, it would be seeking more members. Chelliboyina, Jadhav, Gervasio, and Meyer all expressed the same sentiment in their interviews.

“Join [Mustang Wild] if you can,” Jadhav said, “and do not be shy about submitting anything either. We love to see new submissions, and we can help edit your work if you do not feel like it is up to your standards. You will never know unless you try.”

You can read the 2020-2021 edition of the Mustang Wild literary magazine here.