By Kenney Kost/ne news editor
NE Campus unveils its annual student journal of art and literature, Under the Clock Tower with a reading and reception 7 p.m. Oct. 18 in College Hall (NCAB 1111).
Student authors will read their works, and student artwork will be shown on screen.
Also, the English department is currently accepting submissions for its fall writing competition. Students can submit their work online at undertheclocktower.com/submit. Deadline for submissions is Nov. 5.
“We publish the journal every October, but we hold a contest every long semester,” said English associate professor Rebecca Balcarcel.
The English department receives about 100 poems and another 100 short stories and essays every semester, Balcarcel said. Faculty then reads through all the submissions and selects runners-up and winners from various categories, and those submissions make it into the journal.
“I’m editor-in-chief, but 16 English faculty members judged submissions, so this is a department-wide project,” Balcarcel said. “We strive to encourage our students to write beyond the classroom and create writing that touches readers.”
NE speech/communication major Sherri Gardner won second place last spring for her short story “It Ain’t about the Ringin’.”
Gardner said she entered because she “saw it as a way to influence publishers to consider her work in the future.” Balcarcel encouraged everyone in her creative writing class to submit a piece of work to get the experience and to see where they were as writers, Gardmer said.
She said inspiration could come from anywhere and from any experience in life.
“My story is fiction, inspired by an experience I had when I volunteered for a shift serving as a bell-ringer for the Salvation Army,” she said. “I started the shift hoping for a particular outcome. Finding myself being ignored by many shoppers, I began to try to attract attention that might influence them to donate. I came to understand more about acceptance and generosity.”
Other winners who will read include spring first-place poetry winner Zaqueshala McWilliams and fall fourth-place fiction winner John Abbott.
Several pieces of student art from the journal will be on display. Art associate professor Karmien Bowman, along with several other art faculty members, selected the pieces that made it into the journal.
“Karmien Bowman played a vital role in bringing the art together and getting it photographed for the journal,” Balcarcel said.
