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The origin, development and definition of nidus

          nidus - 1. A nest or a breeding place. 2. A place where something originates, develops, or is located.

          The idea for nidus started in a Pittsburgh bar we frequent, the Squirrel Cage. It originated out of the desire three friends (Cara, Dave, Mike) and I had to establish a literary journal that would publish the kind of work we loved reading and writing ourselves - fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction that is interesting and accessible, thoughtful and important. We created nidus not as a reflection of ourselves, or the University of Pittsburgh's Writing Program, but as a source for an entire community of writers obsessed with documenting the inner and outer worlds they inhabit, writers interested in distinguishing themselves within a larger spectrum of voices.
          We didn't spend much time discussing the why of our project, but rather, the how. We were passionate, ambitious, and relentless. We were first year Master of Fine Arts candidates. All night at the Cage we gulped down White Russians, played Journey on the jukebox, and planned.
          The development of nidus took about a year, though it's difficult to tell the story of its conception without focusing on certain memorable, pivotal, prophetic moments. One such is of a conversation at a party with my friend Bob, who was working all winter to finish his thesis which dealt with cancer research. Bob knew about the journal we wanted to create. He was wearing a beige trenchcoat, standing under a red lightbulb in someone's living room, rolling a cigarette. He told me about the word "nidus."
          "In my field, it's the word for the center of a cancer," he said, pinching tobacco into a rolling paper. "You guys should do this journal, Teegarden." He raised the cigarette to his mouth and lit the end of the smoke. I watched the loose tobacco catch the flame. "And you should call it nidus."
          After that, my investment in nidus became an infection of sorts. With the help of my friends, I decided to take steps to publish the University of Pittsburgh's first online literary journal. I proposed the project to the director of our Writing Program, Lynn Emanuel, last January, and she read our mission statement with definite interest. From there, we talked with various writing faculty members and students about possibilities for, and the potential of, this kind of project. We spent hours in meetings, stationed stiffly around grand wooden tables. We began perusing other journals for ideas, questioning other editors of literary journals for insight. My three friends and I named ourselves editors of the journal. We joked about alternate names for our journal, debated extensively about the phrasing of our proposal and publicity documents, bickered about who would have to take minutes at our meetings. We exchanged ideas; we exchanged words. All winter and spring, we rounded up those willing to help. We were first year MFAs. We were passionate, ambitious, and relentless.
          Soon we had a team of students and faculty behind our project. We had a small amount of money and a large amount of support from the Writing Program. For us, the decision to publish nidus on the internet was an easy one. And with the expertise of our web designer, Bruce Dobler, we were able to create a format that is easily navigable and pleasing to the eye. The most important aspect of publishing online was that it provided a forum where we could reach a large and diverse audience of potential contributors and readers, and create a journal in a relatively fast and inexpensive way.
          And we did reach writers. By the end of November, we had received over 250 submissions of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction for our first issue. From these, our editorial boards selected those that best met our lofty (and somewhat ambiguous) goal to publish "high quality writing". You can imagine the pressure to select work for the first issue of our university's first online literary journal. It had to be better than high quality; it had to live up to our name. It had to distinguish us as a source and center in the literary community.
          In this issue you will find writing, art and interviews that do just that. We feel the pieces we have selected are relevant, exciting and memorable. We know they encourage contemplation and emotional response from readers. We're confident in our first issue - the voices of the pieces in this journal contain the same enthusiasm we felt when creating nidus - they are full of passion and ambition. They are relentless.
                                                         - Erin Teegarden
                                                           Managing Editor, nidus

nidus awaits your e-mail responses!

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