Outside of regular meetings, SOU’s Creative Writing Club held its first event on Friday. The event– a three hour “submittathon” is the first of three scheduled for fall term, and an important milestone for the club as it barrels into the new academic year. The submittathon was held from five P.M. to eight P.M., and was exactly what the title suggests: a workshop dedicated to showing prospective writers in and outside of the Creative Writing program how to get their work published.
It’s hard to imagine a skill more important for students trying to seriously market their writing and build a career off of it, but many writers are often in the dark on very basic elements of the publishing process. The submittathon’s aim was to give students a simple but somewhat comprehensive rundown on where and how to get work from your laptop to literary journals and other potential publishers.
Most new writers and many more established ones are reluctant to share their work, much less throw it out in a professional setting with lots of competition. It’s easy to get intimidated, which probably is a contributing factor to many young writers’ failure to publish and win paying careers. The club this year is focusing on publishing as much as writing and craft itself. Friday’s event was the first submittathon the club has hosted. There will be at least one in every term. The point of Friday’s workshop was to get students to start publishing, on the spot.
The club’s newly minted literary journal, Sexy Grammatical Errors, is also taking submissions through November 17th, exclusively from SOU undergraduate students. A big obstacle to writers trying to get started on bigger projects is they don’t have a resume and portfolio of smaller publications to burnish their credentials, and submitting to Sexy Grammatical Errors is an easy way to get started. They are accepting fiction and poetry submissions of under 1,500 words. Submissions can be emailed to the journal’s editor, Aydin Eliason (eliasona@sou.edu).
The event was a resounding success on a low budget that only covered snacks and art supplies. Lots of students sent things out (me included), many more learned the tricks of the trade, and turnout exceeded expectations. “I’m thrilled that so many people showed up and sent their work out into the world,” said Club President Desiree Remick, who has held the role since the beginning of fall term in late September. “Submitting to lit mags is scary, but having a community of writers to support you makes it easier. We’re all in this together! There are so many great writers in our program at the moment, and I have confidence that publication is within reach for all of us.”
The Club holds meetings every Monday at 4:30, and will be holding more events and submittathons throughout the term and the year. If students want to check it out, they can register on HawkNEST. A submittathon will be held at least once per term, and for Fall two more events are scheduled along with regular meetings.
