Submission Guidelines

Summit Avenue Review invites submissions from undergraduates, graduate students, employees, alumni, and all other members of the University of St. Thomas community, including students from other ACTC colleges taking classes at UST. We are now accepting submissions for the 2009 magazine. Include in the subject line, "for 2009 SAR." The first deadline for submitting visual art is December 1. The first deadline for writing is December 21. We may have a second deadline in the middle of February [specific date TBA], depending on the amount of quality work submitted by the first deadlines. We encourage early submissions, but it’s often the middle of March before we have made our final decisions.

We accept

Writing:

Poetry, fiction, literary non-fiction of various sorts, including the personal essay and memoir, and experimental literary forms.

Literary work may be of any length, but it’s unlikely that anything over 7,000 words will be accepted. Most prose we publish is under 5,000 words. You may submit up to 10 poems and up to 3 prose pieces.

Submit writing as a Word file attached to an e-mail sent to summitreview@stthomas.edu. In the subject line, indicate genre and the upcoming issue's year: for instance, "fiction for 2009 SAR," or "poems for 2009 SAR." In the cover message, be sure to include contact information: name, phone number, e-mail address, mail # on campus or other mailing address.

We are looking for literary work that is fresh and distinctive in language, situation, and treatment, and that conveys a sense of particular authority, a feeling that it’s rooted in specific experience, even if it’s somehow fantastical. We want to be surprised and convinced. On the negative side, we watch out for clichéd actions, situations, language, and images; the assertion of emotions that the reader isn’t made to feel; and unintentional peculiarities of syntax and usage that reasonable copyediting isn’t likely to correct.

Visual Art:

Photography, sculpture, drawings, paintings, mixed media, etc.

Works of art must lend themselves to photographic reproduction or scanning. We especially welcome black and white artwork, but we regularly use color on the cover and usually are able to include a number of color pages in the interior. 

If possible, submit visual artwork as an electronic file attached to an e-mail sent to summitreview@stthomas.edu. Indicate genre in the subject line: for instance “photograph” or “painting,” or “drawing,” and the year: "for 2009 SAR." Be sure to include contact information: name, phone number, e-mail address, mail # on campus or other mailing address.

For submission and selection purposes, visual art files should be submitted as JPEGs (photos) or GIFs (line art). When going to the printer, the editors try to have all visual art saved at more or less 4” x 6,” 300 dpi. The submission file size may range from 20 kb to 1 mb. If selected, a higher resolution file may be requested for a low resolution submission.

If you want, you may submit originals of visual art work. Deliver to the English Department office, JRC 333, or arrange delivery with editors: summitreview@stthomas.edu.

In terms of what sort of visual art work the magazine needs, the main criteria is that it be interesting. We look for photos, for instance, that are interesting in terms of composition (balance, tension, and movement of lines, shapes, textures, and patterns) and subject matter. We look for images that feel new, whether the subject is a person, place, activity, or object., that shows us an unfamiliar subject or lets us see a familiar subject in a new way. In either case, it shows us something we haven’t seen before. We look for what carries an emotional and intellectual and aesthetic charge, and does so in a fresh, unclichéd way. If the subject is itself a work of art not created by the submitting artist, the photo should see it in a distinctly new way, should make it into something new. Technical flaws, such as unintentional lack of focus, insufficient contrast, etc. will usually disqualify a photo from selection, unless some other aspects are extraordinary.