Last call for submissions: ‘Lovesick,’ ‘Huron River Review’

Editor of “Huron River Review” Tom Zimmerman shows off an edition of the literary journal. The deadline to submit for this year’s edition is Jan. 31.

By Lilly Kujawski
Editor

If you’re a writer or visual artist interested in getting your work published, the time to act is now—the deadline to submit to the “Huron River Review,” WCC’s literary journal, is only a couple days away.

The last day to submit pieces to be considered for publication is Jan. 31, but Tom Zimmerman, Writing Center director and editor of the “Huron River Review,” said he and his team are often willing to consider work submitted a day or two after the deadline.

The literary journal, birthed in 2002, is published annually and seeks poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual art and photography from WCC students, staff, faculty and alumni, Zimmerman said.

Newly burgeoning and experienced writers alike are encouraged to submit their work, he added.

The “Huron River Review” doesn’t follow any specific theme so writers have the freedom to submit creative works of all kinds. Zimmerman said the kind of pieces that usually stand out are those with a deep emotional impact for the reader.

“We like things that are beautiful and/or strange; it seems to me that many of the things we value as art have one of those qualities,” Zimmerman said.

Submissions are read and judged blindly by Writing Center staff to determine what pieces will make it to publication, Zimmerman said, which is meant to keep things fair.

Zimmerman said the team usually receives about a hundred or so submissions per book and they tend to publish about half of those submission—a pretty high number. This year’s “Huron River Review” comes out in summer 2020.

Zach Baker, a Writing Center secretary, has had work published in the “Huron River Review” many times over the years and he said the experience helped him grow as a writer.

“Getting published for the first time in the ‘Huron River Review’ was an important step for me as a student and a writer,” Baker said. “It increased my confidence and ultimately led me to submitting to and winning a writing contest at U-M.”

In 2010, Baker won the University of Michigan Hopwood award in nonfiction.

Also open for submissions is an anthology from the WCC Poetry Club entitled “Lovesick,” which comes out Feb. 11, fittingly just in time for Valentine’s Day. The deadline for submissions for “Lovesick” is Feb. 3.

“We wanted to do something sort of for Valentine’s Day, but we didn’t want it to be just a whole bunch of… flowery love poems—though there’s nothing wrong with a flowery love poem—so we thought, well, “lovesick” adds a little bit of ambiguity,” Zimmerman said.

He said he hopes the poems submitted to “Lovesick” are a mix of sweet as well as darker toned.

“Love is ambiguous in a lot of ways, right, especially when we’re talking about romantic love, right? There’s a lot of complexity and ambiguity built in there,” Zimmerman said. “I like the theme, too, because almost anyone who’s written poetry or fiction has probably dealt with love relationships in that work, in some way.”

The WCC Poetry Club usually publishes two or three chapbook anthologies per year. These anthologies are generally about 48 pages long—much smaller than the “Huron River Review.”

When it comes to submitting work, Zimmerman advised writers not to be nervous.

“We love any kind of student writing, we’re very pro-student writing, so we never make fun of pieces or anything like that, we know everyone’s trying and we want to encourage students, we want to make a positive experience,” Zimmerman said.

The Poetry Club and “Huron River Review” team can’t accept every submission they receive, so “rejection is never really a judgment on the merit of your work,” Zimmerman said. He added that creative writing is a very personal form of writing, and what didn’t work for one reader may work for another.

“The idea is not to be discouraged by rejection, because it happens to everyone, no matter who you are,” Zimmerman said.

Writers published in the “Huron River Review” or “Lovesick” retain copyright and ownership of their work after publication and will be “paid” in a few free copies of the book, Zimmerman said.

For students new to creative writing and looking to get more involved with the campus writing community, Zimmerman suggested attending a Poetry Club meeting, held in the Writing Center on the first and third Friday of the month at 5 p.m.. During meetings, club members often workshop pieces with each other and participate in writing prompts.

To experienced writers who’ve been published before in the “Huron River Review” or an anthology and are looking to take the next step, Zimmerman recommends checking out the Poets and Writers website at pw.org for lists of literary magazines seeking submissions. He said writers should be diligent and keep submitting their work because there are so many publications out there.0

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