By Alexis Rufener
Youngstown State University’s Student Literary Arts Association will be holding its first fiction contest for the spring 2015 issue of Jenny Magazine.
Chris Barzak — adviser of SLAA, associate professor at YSU and author of “One for Sorrow” — will be judging the contest along with members of the editorial team of Jenny Magazine.
“The contest is for fiction — specifically speculative fiction, which is a term that encompasses fiction within the science fiction, fantasy, horror, magical realism and weird categories of story in general,” Barzak said.
This contest will require writers to put their creative skills to the test and send in their best work in regards to the guidelines on the magazine website. Stories should be no longer than 5,000 words, written in standard manuscript format and should not include the name of the writer within the actual submission document.
After the deadline, Barzak along with the editorial team will pick the top 10 out of all the admissions. From there, the stories will be ranked from first place to third place — which will receive cash prizes and publication. Those not chosen will still get the chance to be published, leaving no one left out of the contest.
For this contest and others following, Jenny Magazine asks that future participants “carefully read through the guidelines for the specific category they are submitting to.”
Christopher Lettera helped create Jenny Magazine in fall of 2010. He was the second president of the SLAA, founding editor of the magazine and had the passion of bringing the rust and ruin of Youngstown to life through the art of writing.
The name Jenny Magazine came from the Jeanette Blast Furnace, nicknamed Jenny, of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. Bruce Springsteen even mentioned Jenny in his single “Youngstown,” where he sang about the Rust Belt city. Unfortunately, the blast furnace shut down in the ‘70s and was demolished later in 1996.
“Youngstown is not done creating, not done making. We are each of us, every day, telling stories. Here in the pages of Jenny, we aim to display some of those artifacts made by wordsmiths and visual artists alike,” Jenny Magazine’s website said.
Jenny Magazine will be accepting submissions, for both the contest and general submissions, until Nov. 21. Contest submissions should be sent to [email protected], following the guidelines posted on the Jenny Magazine website. General submissions should be submitted online, through the submission manager on the website.
To learn more about Jenny Magazine, submission guidelines and to submit work, visit www.jennymag.org or Jenny Magazine on Facebook.