New Student Publication Seeks Submissions

In collaboration with the Creative Writing Program, students Elizabeth Dunn ‘18, Tabitha Mueller ‘18, and Cole Merrell ‘19 are currently seeking submissions for a printed publication of student responses to the 2016 presidential election.

A couple of weeks ago Merrell submitted an essay to Professor Kathryn Kramer of the English Department. In a subsequent all-campus email announcing the creation of the publication and the request for sumissions, Merrell said: “Like most of my writing, the paper for Professor Kramer was too wordy, overly personal, and lacking in focus. Unlike most of my writing, though, the essay was almost singularly focused on the outcome of the election, an exercise in processing my own emotions about an event that seems to have brought our country to the edge of its collective seat, leaving some exulting and some terrified but all of us unsure, exactly, of what’s to come.”

After reading her essay, Kramer told Merrell that other students had also recently submitted writing that responded, in one way or another, to the current political landscape. “Anticipating that many other students on campus had also taken to writing as a means of processing the political events of this past month,” said Merrell, “a group of us came up with the idea of publishing some of these creative responses.”

According to Merrell, this isn’t meant to be a collection of op-eds or polemics. She said they are interested in anything creative students are willing to submit about the election — poetry, drawings, short stories, creative nonfiction, paintings, wingdings, etc.

Merrell said she and her co-publishers want to capture the full breadth of what students are feeling right now by publishing as much as possible. They just can’t guarantee they will publish all the work they receive since they are still looking into printing options and aren’t sure how many submissions there will be.

Students should send submissions or questions to Elizabeth Dunn (edunn@middlebury.edu), Tabitha Mueller (tmueller @middlebury.edu), or Cole Merrell (cmerrell@middlebury.edu) by Friday, December 9. Merrell said they we want the collection to appear as soon as possible and can’t wait to see students’ submissions.