What began as a dream for the creative writing club and its advisor, Mrs. Drury is now unfolding into a reality. This year, the creative writing club is launching a literary magazine showcasing poetry, short stories, and artwork from both students and faculty. The theme of the literary magazine is “Dreams.”
“It doesn't have to be that the whole piece is focused on a dream,” creative writing club advisor Mrs. Drury said. “You can just mention at one time that the character had a dream, or it could be a goal, or it could be that you just have hope for something.”
Freshman Lilly Beck and Creative Writing Club advisor Angela Drury recieve inspiration from The Verve's 2010 literary magazine. Carrying on the legacy of this prior production, the Creative Writing Club seeks to bring new light to the poetic and artistic talent of the student body. photo by Sadie Reddish
Throughout the process of brainstorming theme ideas and planning submission requirements, the club members aimed to allow applicants a lot of creative liberty.
“It doesn’t have to make sense but it can be interesting,” literary magazine co-Editor in Chief Canaan Goodwin said. “You can [even] spell things wrong, but it could be purposeful, like [if you’re] telling the perspective of a kid.”
The Verve Newspaper used to produce a literary magazine, but the project did not continue after 2019. After attending a literary magazine workshop at the GSPA conference, Mrs. Drury felt inspired to relaunch a similar project, this time providing the creative writing club with the opportunity to manage it.
“I help put together the idea of making the magazine submittable,” said Goodwin. “We’ve been looking over all of the submissions, making sure they fit the guidelines . . . and coming up with a name and cover.”
With nine students in the club this year, planning, organizing, and producing a literary magazine in its entirety is no small feat. But Mrs. Drury believes it will help the club members grow as writers.
“This is the third year that I've done creative writing club, and it gets to where you've covered a lot of the same skills,” said Mrs. Drury. “I kind of felt like it would be a good way [for us to] have something additional to do. . . that's going to help these people that are new to the club . . . and actually help these people who've been in the club for a long time to continue developing and honing their craft.”
Publications and online platforms provide opportunities to submit pieces of writing but often require a submission fee and insist that applicants be over eighteen years old. The TKA literary magazine is open to submissions from 6th through 12th-grade students and faculty, providing the chance to be published free of charge.
Written submissions can be poems or short stories and must not exceed 1000 words. Art submissions can be physical or digital, and scanned copies must be submitted. 3D art is also permitted.
The deadline for all submissions is April 1. Submission links for writing and artwork can be found in the TKA weekly announcements and in the QR codes below.
“I know it can be intimidating to put yourself out there . . . you already made yourself vulnerable by putting it down on the page,”Mrs. Drury said. “But it’s kind of the next step in becoming a better writer, so I would say go for it.”