Toyon: Seven Decades of Student-Driven Publishing captures the history and spirit of Toyon literary journal from its origin in 1954 to the future that surely will exist beyond these pages. The aim of this book is to inform future Toyon staffers of the unique history of the publication, to stress the importance of maintaining archives, and to provide insight into the inner workings of book/magazine production over the last 60+ years.

This book is also a place to tell the story of a student-run publication from the perspective of the student. We are two former Toyon staff members who worked on issues 65 and 66, in the years of 2019 and 2020, respectively. We hope that these pages will entertain as well as educate-and that it truly honors the passionate and dynamic voices of the student editors, contributors, and volunteers that have published this magazine year after year.

We have striven to include many details and first-hand accounts and to properly interpret the information archived in the Humboldt State University library special collections. As with any archive, gaps remain in the history of Toyon that we’ve been able to access; for some periods we had very little information other than the finished magazine. In these instances, we worked hard to summarize what we could and fill in gaps using course catalogues and other materials from the archives to properly capture the era.