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About the helix
In the fall of 1977, the first Helix Magazine appeared as a small paperback booklet at Central Connecticut State College, before the school was a university. When it first came out, the Helix was new and fresh, and the books were mostly printed in simple colors with art designs. Since then, the Helix has gone through significant changes in appearance, size, and design to become the book it is today. Some years the Helix would range from being an annual publication to a biannual one. The Helix was mostly produced every semester since its inception, but there were periods of time when the book would not appear, and it died out for a while in 1985.
Five years later, in the spring of 1990, Professor John Heitner recruited students to revive the Helix. With a $300 budget, the students produced a simple booklet out of white paper and staples, with doily designs throughout it. Eventually, Helix’s budget grew, and with the increased budget, students were able to put out better versions of it each semester. It wasn’t until 1998 that the Helix finally started using perfect binding instead of staples, giving the Helix a look more suited for a book. Another significant change in the Helix happened when it started including art in the early 2000s, opening it up to those that create and appreciate art.
The Helix of today continues the tradition of combining different literary genres such as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, along with art, into one magazine. In the fall of 2020, the magazine was totally redone to make use of the technology of the 21st century. We now put out three online issues and one print issue per year on our website helixmagazine.org.
Mission Statement
The Helix seeks to shed a light on the many different literary avenues of the world. We publish writers who have previously gone unnoticed, or unpublished before. We focus on the editorial process and promote professionalism while taking the evolution of society and culture into consideration.
