by Gloria Keeley

Following the release of its Spring 2024 issue, Forum is proud to share this special blog post by long-time contributor to the magazine (and former CCSF student and teacher) Gloria Keeley.

To see Gloria’s most recent work, like the painting Bridge to Sausalito featured in this post, check out Forum (Spring 2024) at local bookstores or email us at forum@mail.ccsf.edu or get in touch with our Creative Writing department.

My Involvement with Forum Magazine & How It Began

When I was sixteen I quit high school. I was a high junior. My brother was going to CCSF at the time. One afternoon when I was down in our family room my brother came in. He had just gotten home from his classes. He came up to me and said, “Here, I got you this, I think you might like it”.

He dropped the 1966 issue of FORUM Magazine on my lap. I opened it up and inside were lots of poetry, short stories and photographs/art work. I asked my brother where he got it. He said he got it at school, it was from an English class. He told me how the class gets submissions from students and the class chooses the best submissions then they put together the magazine. I was floored. I’d never heard of anything like this before. I began to get so excited about someday being involved with FORUM and contributing in some way.

I wasn’t fully into writing yet but something deep down got awakened. I had just begun writing a little bit of poetry. I found that I could put words together to form a viable poem. I didn’t have the groundwork yet for using imagery or any of the other tools for poetry; that would come much later. When I saw that issue of FORUM and realized it was all student-produced and that the writing and photos were all submissions from CCSF students, it really hit me that I could also try and submit my work and be considered for publication. Having my work in print in a magazine was very exciting to me and I kept thinking about that. I made it my goal to try and both be on the FORUM staff and to submit my work. I decided that day to somehow get into CCSF. I wanted to be able to skip finishing high school and go right into CCSF.

The next week I took the street car to CCSF and walked into Dean Golding’s office. She was an older woman. Even though I had no appointment, she asked me into her office. I told her I wanted to enroll in CCSF. She told me the proper channels. I then broke the news to her that I hadn’t finished high school and that I didn’t want to have to go back and finish. She looked at me for what seemed like ages. She asked me why I wanted to skip high school and become a student at CCSF. I told her I wanted to become a Drama major and that I also wanted to get involved in the FORUM magazine class. She had a pleased look on her face. I think it was because I knew exactly what I wanted to do. She told me to wait a minute and she left the office. When she came back she said to me, “I tried to see if there was a way for you to come right into CCSF. However, without a high school diploma you must be at least 21. Being that you’re only 18, you will have to go back and finish high school.” I was so disappointed and must have had a very sad look on my face. Dean Golding told me that it would be must faster for me to finish high school than to wait around 3 years for my 21st birthday. She was so kind and nice to me, I will never forget her.

I went home and told my mom that I wanted to finish high school. Dean Golding had told me about an adult high school I could enroll in. It was John Adams Adult High School, later to be known as the John Adams Campus of CCSF.

I enrolled in the semester of 1966. It took me a year to finish a year and a half of high school. Their classes were accelerated. Two of my classes that I took were junior and senior English. Both teachers were very encouraging to me when one of their lessons had the class write poetry. One in particular, Mrs. Nelson, commented very favorably on my poems. I became even more excited about getting into CCSF.

After graduating from high school I enrolled in CCSF in the fall of 1967. I didn’t approach the FORUM class yet, I wanted to get a handle on my Drama major. (That’s a whole story in itself; the CCSF Drama Department was one of the best in the state). I did, however, purchase the 1967 issue of FORUM.

The next semester, fall 1968, I enrolled in the FORUM magazine class. At that time the class was only one unit and you could only take it for credit/no credit. Our teacher was Mr. Donald Cunningham. He operated the class much differently than it is now run. The students read the submissions, not knowing who wrote what, and voted on each submission. We didn’t split up the genres; we each had to rate every submission. Each submission had a lead sheet and each student would put either “Yes” or “No” beside our names. We didn’t comment on the submissions, we just rated them. Nobody knew who the writers or artists were. There were no guidelines for voting. We didn’t really discuss each piece. If someone was adamant about a piece being included, they would bring that up in class and we’d discuss it. I was lucky enough to get two poems accepted. As an aside, my poems were quite dreadful, looking back at them now. This was my first time in print and I was so excited to be included in this issue.

When the magazine came out in June, the FORUM students had to sign up to sell them on campus. If my memory serves me, they were fifty cents each. I set up a table on the CCSF quad and was able to get a decent amount of sales.

The next year, 1969, I was the editor of FORUM. At that time FORUM was published once a year. The editor had quite a few jobs. Besides organizing and tallying the votes, the editor had to secure advertisements for the magazine. I was able to get ads from The California Book Company, which was the student book store across the street from CCSF. I also had to go to the phone company to get an ad, which at that time was known as Pacific Telephone. I was very happy when Mr. Cunningham said he would come with me to the phone company. Mr. Cunningham didn’t drive so we went across town in my little Toyota Corona. We had the best conversation, he was an incredibly nice man.

In that issue I had a poem and short story published. Our cover had a bit of color in that issue. My friend, Winston Tong, drew the inside Title Page. Winston went on to become a punk rocker in the band Texedomoon. He was also an actor and puppeteer.

After that semester, I signed up for the class in 1970. Still spilling over from the 60s, the Vietnam war was still going on and all kinds of new and exciting things were happening on campus. CCSF was the first campus nationwide to offer Black Studies classes. I, of course, took the Black Drama class. One of our substitute teachers for that class was a student at CCSF. His name was Ted Lange, who later became “Isaac” on “The Love Boat”. Very nice guy.

The teacher in the FORUM class that semester was Brown Miller. He was a bit of a hippie in those days and liked to go against the grain. I became good friends with him and his wife, Sandi. That semester the class decided to change the name of the magazine. Brown was all for it, he loved the idea. I wasn’t too happy about this, but I was outvoted. I was even unhappier at the name the class chose. The magazine became RAMITUP. The connection, of course, was that our football team at CCSF were The Rams.

RAMITUP was the only issue that the students did everything on the journal. Except for the submissions, all other work was done by the students in the class. One of the things that was interesting about this issue was we decided to make the pages all different colors. We chose the pieces, typed the works, chose the colors of the pages and collated the whole magazine one evening at Brown’s house on Buchanan St. The magazine was larger than previous issues of FORUM. It was 8 1/2 by 11. I really liked the color pages idea. We finished all the work of collating in Brown’s living room. The next day the collated issues were brought to the journalism department. They did all of the stapling of the magazine. I have to say that particular issue of the CCSF literary journal got the most attention and sold the most copies. We sold that issue on campus for twenty-five cents.

The next semester the teacher was again Brown Miller. There was yet another name change to the magazine. It was now to be titled Acrophobia. In this issue, none of the author’s names were printed with their works. All of the names were listed in the back of the issue, with the titles of their work. I was listed as “editor emeritus” in this issue. It was my last semester at CCSF.

After leaving CCSF I didn’t keep track of FORUM Magazine, as I was busy earning my BA and MA at SFSU. I did, however, submit to the 1990 issue, which was now titled City Scriptum. I don’t know who the teacher was for that issue. I got one poem accepted in that issue.

I don’t know when FORUM went back to its original name, but it has been FORUM again for a number of years. I’m hoping it stays with that name, it fits the atmosphere of the writing and the writers of the magazine.

I have to say that FORUM Magazine kickstarted me and woke me up to what my future would be. FORUM gave me the incentive to go back and finish high school, enroll in CCSF and major in Drama (now called Theater Arts) and submit poems to the magazine. Those were my goals and those goals were all I could think about.

I had no intention of going on to SFSU. However, I had a great counselor, Mr. McCarthy, who, when he asked me what my goal was, I always just looked at him. Every single time he set up my class schedule he filled in “Goal” with SFSU. It turned out he was exactly right. Due to FORUM Magazine and all of the instructors and counselors I encountered, and my brother bringing me a copy of FORUM, I now have a BA and MA in Creative Writing.