“Penumbra,” California State University, Stanislaus’s annual art and literary journal, will close submissions on Feb. 7. Affiliation with the university is not required to snake your piece in before the deadline.
“This is the 24th edition of the journal,” Kayla Seabourn, Editor-in-Chief of “Penumbra,” said. “In the past it has been mostly filled with written pieces but over the past few years we have been gaining more submissions of art and having a high volume of [those submissions] being voted into the journal for publication.”
The process of readying “Penumbra” for publication is from top-to-bottom driven by the students enrolled in English 4019.
“The class is set up where each person reads the packets of submissions and then votes on the pieces,” Seabourn said. “The art is done the same way. They then get into groups – Marketing, Editing, Book Design. Each group has their own set of tasks to make sure the book is finished and ready for publication as well as for our reading event which is always held in May.”
Last May’s “Penumbra” reading highlighted the variety of contributions they received – a few personal, dark nonfiction pieces, a mock epic about the rivalry between a cat and the Great White Moth and a moving tale about love and rabbits – but also touched on the magazine’s unofficial theme with works like “Evergreen in the Desert” and “Fruitless.” While “Penumbra” changes with each release, as new students take up the production reins and fresh faces submit, a certain fibrous spirit has found consistency.
“We get a lot of tree imagery and oddly written pieces that use tree imagery as well,” Seabourn said. “I like to think of the journal as having that theme from year to year and it is always fun to see how the trees change from edition to edition […] but maybe this will be the year ‘Penumbra’ is filled with a new image and thus creating a new imagined theme for our amazing team this term to tamper with.”
In addition to mailing in your submissions, you can drop them off with Tula Mattingly in the English Department before the deadline – or with Kayla Seabourn in Dorothy Bizzini Hall, room 237D, Monday and Wednesday from 3:30 to 4 p.m., or Tuesday and Thursday from 12:30 to 4 p.m.
Submissions must include a brief biography in the third person, an email address and phone number.
“Every student on campus should know about ‘Penumbra,'” Seabourn said. “Not just because it is a publication through their university but because it is a wonderful opportunity to learn or to get your stuff published. It isn’t just for English majors and I think that message needs to be heard.”
For full submission guidelines visit facebook.com/PenumbraCSUS.