PBR SALON

It was only a matter of time before a conversation among people who live and breathe literature turned to a discussion of former English teachers. Bernstein described one of his disliked high school teachers as a somewhat oxymoronic “Buddhist sadist.” Our discussion is greatly enhanced by the presence of a real life English teacher in our midst.

Joseph F. Quinn ’08 teaches English at his former high school, Regis, an all boys Jesuit school on the Upper East Side. He is greatly enjoying the perks his position entails. He describes rereading “The Scarlet Letter”: “It’s like listening to a pop song again when you’re not a virgin and being like, ‘Oh, that’s what it’s about.’”

Despite Quinn’s jests, the writers of TBV are serious about devising an educational initiative, which could possibly go some way toward making the magazine self-sustainable. Still in the brainstorming stage, the idea would be to supply high school classrooms with stimulus material and questions to engender in-class literary debate. As a high school English teacher, Quinn is the natural person to pilot the educational scheme. He is optimistic about the plan, saying materials that supplement the prescribed curriculum often foster the best conversations. “The other day we were doing “[The Adventures of] Huckleberry Finn,” and someone sent me a letter of a former slave to his master. We started talked about it, and the conversation was fucking awesome. Everyone was so much more responsive.” He is eager to try out whatever The Bad Version devises in his classroom.

In an ideal world, Bernstein would like to make the material available in the public school system. “That would be the dream, to bring The Bad Version to public high schools,” he says. But bureaucracy and red tape make that more of a fantasy than a realistic goal, he says; private schools are a more likely audience.

The Bad Version, with noble but unrealized ambitions, is still in its infancy. While it aspires to great things, its readership is still relatively humble. The conversation at Martin’s apartment is peppered with discussion of a recent Harvard graduate whose rise has been rapid: Jeremy Lin ’10.

“It feels like he’s having success in this very public way, like Jeremy Lin is some sort of avatar,” says Bernstein. If Jeremy Lin is indeed an avatar for young Harvard grads forging a path in the real world doing what they love, then there are great things in store for The Bad Version.

—Staff writer Anjali R. Itzkowitz can be reached at aitzkow@college.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: Feb. 22

An earlier version of this article stated that the literary magazine The Bad Version does not pay its contributors. In fact, it pays writers who are not on its staff $50 per article.