My first month of college at a four year university has flown past, and I'm left with an overwhelming sense of regression. The one thing that strikes me more than any other change is that it seems like being published in the college's literary magazine is the most advanced most students have achieved: and not through any fault of their own. Now, I may be wrong! I haven't taken any writing classes yet, I'm just basing this off of what I've been told by other students in my English classes. At my community college, I had a dedicated professor who challenges her students to submit their work not only to the campus literary magazine, but also to other magazines. Not only does she require her creative writing students to submit work to several different publications, but she prompts her literature students to do the same. Our English Club is full of writers of all different genres and skill levels, but we share our knowledge, spend our time to critique each others works, and encourage each other towards higher standards. I don't think this is because Hagerstown, MD is such a fertile ground for writers, but because the talent that was naturally present was coaxed into being active by a professor who encourages all her students to join her in the ranks of published authors.
That doesn't mean that Towson is full of less able writers or that the school has less of a draw on artistic types, but that campus writers need the information. What I'd like to do is to provide the information that students need. Getting published is a lot easier than it seems to be...it's all about submitting. Just like finding a job, you have to fill out a lot of applications before you get hired (at least nowadays you do!). This blog post will cover the basics on how to submit, as well as link to some handy information posted by various magazines.
