digital painting
Julius Prince Green II is a student of Georgia State University.
Magdalena Dumitrescu is a student of Georgia State University.
oil on Stonehenge, 12″x16″
Alicia Ferrara is a student of the University of Delaware.
UNDERGROUND
UNDERGRAD ART/LIT MAG
[Georgia State University]
CALL FOR NATIONAL SUBMISSIONS
[2/15/17-3/19/17]
Volume II, Issue I, Cover art by E.K. Cobb
Volume IV, Issue I, Cover art by Sydney Daniel
Now welcoming submissions from undergrads currently enrolled in any college or university in the country!***
We’re hoping to expand our readership and extend our reach to include exciting student voices outside of Georgia State University.
We will consider original art, poetry, and prose for our Spring 2017 issue.
We are also interested in work by international students, and by undergrads enrolled in colleges and universities outside of the United States. If you have any questions regarding eligibility, please email our Editor-in-Chief at underground.journal@gmail.com
***Please be aware that the submission process for non-GSU students is different from the process for students currently attending Georgia State University.***
Submissions close on 3/19/17, at 11:59 p.m.
Underground Art/Lit Mag at Georgia State University, National Undergrad Submission Guidelines (2017):
- Submissions should be sent via email to gsuunderground@gmail.com
- Please attach each piece you’d like us to consider as a separate file. It’s okay to send us multiple attachments in a single email. All files should be standard formats, such as .doc, .docx, .jpg, or .eps.
- Each file you attach should include your name (as you’d like it to appear, if selected for publication), and the name of the college or university you currently attend. You must be currently enrolled as an undergraduate student in order to be eligible to submit. The best way to help us verify your status is by submitting your work using your current student email. We will verify that you are currently enrolled as an undergraduate student.
- Please use 12-pt. Times New Roman or similar font.
- Limit word counts to approximately 2,500 words. Preference will be given to shorter pieces. We’re all busy undergrads, too!
- Attention: Additionally, you must provide all of the following information in the body of your email. We will not be able to consider your work unless you do so.
- Full Name
- Mailing Address
- Phone Number
- School
- Title(s) and genre(s) (art, poetry, or prose) of pieces submitted
- Media used (if applicable)
If your work is selected for publication in our upcoming issue, you will receive two complimentary copies of the journal, which will be sent to the mailing address you include in the submission email.
Get in touch! We want to hear from other undergrads and undergrad literary journals around the country (and the world). Let’s start a conversation, swap subscriptions, swap ads, compare notes, etc.
Thanks for taking the time to submit your work to Underground. Our mission is to give you a platform with which to reach a wider audience. We can’t wait to hear from you! Get heard!
On Camille Harper’s “The Potter’s Wife”
By David Revzin
“The Potter’s Wife,” by Camille Harper, is the portrait of an artist as an old man, presented by his wife, who is watching his slow demise. Here is a snapshot of a life in decline and of love overshadowed by sorrow and tragedy. There are no more Muses.
“My husband keeps up the charade well, just as I do,” says the wife. “He hasn’t had a show in years.” The subtle absurdities of this deteriorating home are soon replaced by a devastating realism embodied by tragedy. While the potter’s wife searches for signs of artistic life in her husband’s clay-covered hands (“hands that paid for this house”), “it is impossible to not notice the shaking.”
Harper’s story is both beautiful and bleak. It is a reminder of the intersections of art, the body, and life. Creation and destruction coexist. When we learn of the source of the potter’s sorrow, we start to sense the strength of his wife. She, too, has suffered. She, too, searches for signs of hope. We, too, see the shadows of the past.
“The Potter’s Wife,” by Camille Harper, appears in Volume 2, Issue 1 of Underground (2011).
10. The glory of being published- There’s a certain feeling you get when you open up a book or magazine and see the words you’ve written. It’s the final step. It’s what you dreamed of. Now you can say, “I’ve been published.”
9. Fame- We know, you’re tired of going home and always getting asked, “What’s going on in your life?” Now, instead of mumbling, “Not much, Aunt Tabitha,” you might mention that you are a published author/artist. NBD!
8. Immortality- For generations to come your name and work will be in the Underground archives for future students look back on and be inspired by.
7. Bragging Rights- Put it on your CV, your resume, your Linked In, your Facebook, your Twitter, your Tumblr, your professional website–you can even put it on your My Space if you’re feeling nostalgic!
6. Being a Part of Something- Underground is not just a publication, but a family. When you become a part of our creative community, you meet other people who know what you’re going through and a door opens to a whole new world. Who knows what you’ll find?!
5. Deadlines- We’ve all been there. You’re workshopping tomorrow, but that poem isn’t finished. For some reason your story is in Kansas when it should be London. You load up on candy, energy drinks, and memes to pull an all nighter. It all works out and you come out with a great piece. Deadlines can help push you to create. Knowing our submissions are not open forever might just be the push you need.
4. It’s Addictive- Once you submit to Underground you’ll be familiar with the process, the butterflies will be gone, your adrenaline will kick in and you’ll be wishing submissions for the next issue were open already. Who knows? Maybe you’ll gain the confidence to submit to one of the big literary journals…and get accepted!
3. We Love Your Writing- We love hearing what you have to say. Through exchanging our works we inspire each other and build off the momentum of creative energy. Join the conversation!
2.Them Feels- There’s nothing better than checking your email and instead of being told your library book is over due (again), you’ve got an acceptance letter in your box! It’s a rush of adrenaline every time, followed by a warm fuzzy feeling of pride and joy. It’s definitely something to celebrate.
1. Underground will soon be in the New York Public Library archives! The NYPL is our first official subscriber, so your work will be kept safe for years to come! We know your work is special and you worry about submitting to the right place. Underground is proud to be the right place. Let us help spread your word. You deserve to be heard.
Now that submissions are open, you’re probably trying to scramble to come up with your next amazing poem or write down that short story idea you’ve thought about all summer. Sometimes writing can be difficult and that’s okay, even our literary heroes had their share of trials and tribulations in writing. Here’s some advice for when the words don’t come easy, or sometimes at all.
- “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
—Ernest Hemmingway
2. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
—Stephen King
3. “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
—Mark Twain
4. “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
—Jack Kerouac
5. “And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
—Sylvia Plath
6. “Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
—William Faulkner
7. “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
—Henry David Thoreau
8. “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
—Thomas Mann
9. “You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
—Ray Bradbury
10. “A word after a word after a word is power.”
—Margaret Atwood
And one extra secret bonus track, for when you do write something, and it’s good, and we accept it:
“The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you. It’s Imposter Syndrome, something my wife Amanda christened the Fraud Police.
In my case, I was convinced that there would be a knock on the door, and a man with a clipboard (I don’t know why he carried a clipboard, in my head, but he did) would be there, to tell me it was all over, and they had caught up with me, and now I would have to go and get a real job, one that didn’t consist of making things up and writing them down, and reading books I wanted to read. And then I would go away quietly and get the kind of job where you don’t have to make things up any more.”
—Neil Gaiman
Check out authors Collin Kelley and Erica Wright at the Georgia Center for the Book this Thursday evening. They’ll be discussing mystery writing and their new novels. Collin Kelley is a local Atlanta poet, playwright, and novelist. Erica Wright received her M.F.A from Columbia University. Get more info at http://www.georgiacenterforthebook.org/Events/show.php?id=886.
The Georgia Center for the Book at DeKalb County Public Library is located at 215 Sycamore Street in Decatur, GA, 30030.
Your professors read what you write. How much do you know about their work? Check out the GSU English Department’s online Faculty Bookshelf!
About Us
We are Georgia State University's art and literary journal and creative collective run entirely by undergrads from our downtown Atlanta campus! We exclusively publish GSU undergrads from all campuses — submissions including but not limited to: creative writing, non-fiction, poetry, photography, and art of any medium. We thank you for seeing what we're all about!