Tag Archives: College of Charleston

11 Literary Journals Seeking Work from Undergraduate Students

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30 North Literary Review: 30 North is one of the few nationwide undergraduate literary journals in the country. We are dedicated to publishing the finest in undergraduate poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and artwork in our annual print journal. We also publish author interviews and reviews of contemporary literature conducted and written by our staff on our website.

ANGLES is a magazine that publishes brief prose and poetry that reveals distinct and important perspectives on ourselves and our world. We seek fresh, urgent writing that cares about language and pays close attention to it, that uses form and structure purposefully, and that isn’t afraid to take risks. We value traditions but are keen on challenging them. As a publication edited by undergraduates, we value and prioritize college-aged voices with distinct perspectives, and take pride in being among a writer’s first publications.

The Chimes accepts submissions from students, faculty, and alumni of Shorter University, as well as from undergraduate students enrolled at any college or university. All submissions must be original; plagiarism, whether accidental or purposeful, is unacceptable. The Chimes, having been part of Shorter University’s history for over 130 years, holds to the values upheld by the University. We withhold the right to reject any pieces submitted for publication that do not fit with the University’s mission (“Transforming Lives Through Christ”);

The Merrimack Review: We only accept submissions from current undergraduate (associate/bachelor’s) or graduate (master’s/PhD) students. Submissions should display a strong understanding of craft and cause readers to react, both emotionally and intellectually. They should be previously unpublished, meaning work that has not already appeared in another magazine, on another website, in a book, etc. Work that appeared on your personal blog is fine by us, but we have a preference for stuff the public hasn’t seen before.

Miscellany: The College of Charleston’s student-produced literary and art journal. Students are invited to submit their original artwork, poetry, photography and prose to be considered for publication. A student committee consisting of individuals selected by the editor-in-chief will meet during the beginning of each spring semester to select works for publication in Miscellany. The finished product is distributed to the campus community in April.

The Mochila Review: is an annual international undergraduate journal published with support from the English and Modern Languages department at Missouri Western State University. Our goal is to publish the best short stories, poems, and essays from the next generation of important authors: student writers. Our staff, comprised primarily of undergraduate students, understands the publishing challenges that emerging writers face and is committed to helping talented students gain wider audiences in the pages of The Mochila Review and on our website.

The Red Mud Review: The Red Mud Review is a student-organized literary magazine published by Austin Peay State University. The journal accepts poetry, fiction, essays, drama, and visual art by students currently enrolled in any university around the nation. Alumni of Austin Peay State University and other community members are also encouraged to submit.   Please, view our submission guidelines and browse through past issues to learn more about our journal.

Sagebrush Review: All college students may submit works of Poetry, Prose, Art, and Photography for consideration of publication in the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Literary and Arts Journal, Sagebrush Review Volume 12. Students may choose to submit for free, or may choose to pay a small nominal fee of $3 per submission to be considered for the “Editor’s Choice” award in the categories of visual arts (art and photography) and writing (poetry and prose). The winner of the visual arts category will have his or her artwork featured as the volume’s cover; the winner of the writing category will be on the first page, with acknowledgement.

Sink Hollow Literary Magazine: The site of a meteorological anomaly imparts its name to this journal. The sinkholes within the Wasatch-Cache National Forest in Logan Canyon produce the coldest temperatures in Utah – and often in the entire contiguous United States. The bottom of the sinks never goes more than four days without a freeze, even in midsummer. These pools of trapped nocturnal air can vary from the temperatures surrounding the sinks by as much as 70 degrees. It is so cold, trees do not grow there. We send our salutation from a desert climate valley at -69 degrees. Welcome to Sink Hollow.

Susquehanna Review: We’re interested in undergraduate writing with fresh language, complexity, strong character development, emotional resonance, and momentum. We want to read something we haven’t read before. We want your language to linger in us long after we’ve finished the piece. Please read past issues for examples of what we’re looking for. We accept fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, literary translations, and art.

Zingara Poetry Review is accepting submissions in December 2019 and January 2020 from poets who have no more than three individual publications to their name. Current undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to submit as are self-taught, new writers.  Poems will be published on Zingara Poetry Review during the month of January, 2020.

 

Summer Writing and Revision is Fine

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This summer, I have been availing myself of the use of the College of Charleston’s Addlestone Library’s study rooms to focus on several writing projects.

This is the first summer that the library has offered reserved study rooms to faculty, and it all came about in response to popular demand and the advocacy of the Faculty Writer’s Retreat facilitator, Lynn Cherry.

The retreat itself, held during most school breaks, is quite a boon and one that I participate in every chance I get, which has been four times thus far. Unlike a writing conference, which usually involves craft lectures, panels, readings, seminars, and, perhaps, workshops, the College of Charleston’s Faculty Writers Retreat simply provides a distraction-free study room, daily lunches, afternoon snacks, and a sense of accountability. Faculty can apply for a 2, 3, or 5-day stint and available spots fill quickly. Participants agree that they will not use the time to prep for classes, grade or browse social media. Most everyone finds they get a lot done during their selected time period, and even when there are struggles or blocks, most faculty are glad to have had the time to deal with those, too, as it actually helps them  move forward.

Though I come away from the Faculty Writer’s Retreat with a different kind of same kind of high that a conference might generate, I always come away feeling productive, and centered and with plenty of evidence of my hard work. The difference is subtle but important.

This year, after a number of participants expressed just how useful it was having access to a study room, myself included, the retreat facilitator inquired into the matter on our behalf. Thanks to her initiative the good folks at Addlestone agreed to set aside three rooms for faculty to reserve for up to three days at a time during any given week this summer, up until the week that classes begin.

And I have been in one of them every week that I’ve been in town.

The first several weeks of the summer I worked almost entirely on the New Mexico Poem anthology, since that was my focus during the retreat in May, and more or less wallowed in rereading every contribution and reconsidering the organization and title of the sections. What I found interesting about the process was how I paired some of the same poems together in the revision as I had paired in the first collection, which I discovered after reviewing both manuscripts. In other instances, and maybe because of the new section titles and focus, poems wound up in very different locations.

I’m sure I’ve spent over 100 hours reconsidering the collection in detail, not including the breaks I took to remain as fresh and as objective as possible. It’s no lie that being hungry, angry, lonely, or tired will drastically affect one’s judgment, so I made sure not to deliberate while experiencing any of those states.

I sent the manuscript off to my co-editor in mid-June, right before taking off for Kansas City to visit family.  As is usually the case, I found it very difficult to shift my mental state from contemplating poetry to focusing on family for those few days but finally let go and shifted my focus to the present moment and to enjoying my time away from Charleston. Now that I have returned home, the opposite is more true and I struggle to ease myself back into a life groove.

To help with my re-entry, and in the spirit of easy does it, I “suited up and showed up” to my reserved study room on Wednesday, after three weeks away, determined to work on something. I set no specific goal or objective – just brought with me a hard copy of my own manuscript and my computer. After getting settled in, I was able to revise a few poems, rearrange my MS into sections, and, eventually, assemble and submit a six-page manuscript for a literary magazine In which I would very much like to have my poems appear. I think the day was more productive than it would have been had I fallen into either of the two habits that are most common to me: 1) overwhelm myself with a list of a dozen possible projects on which I might focus, or 2) frustrate myself with an improbable goal. It is much better, I am learning, to have an open mind as I approach one small project at a time.

I did wind up canceling my Thursday study room reservation, however,  to meet with an exterminator regarding the Yellow Jackets that have taken residence in my yard, most likely as a result of our neglecting yard work those seven months we were living in an apartment while repairs were being made to the house after Hurricane Matthew. (Yes, I can find a way to drop that bit of info into most conversations.) Yellow Jackets, I decided, are just a little more pressing than having a study room for the afternoon.

The week ahead is a busy one. I am to attend a Writing Across the Curriculum conference and have about a half-dozen appointments to see to. I was tempted to cancel my study room reservations for the week, seeing how I will only get a few hours here and there to utilize the space, but decided against it, for when things are especially busy it is especially important to hold space open for my writing. I may not get as much time as I would prefer, but any time I do capture will go under the column for successes this week.