First off, I’d just like to apologize for not adhering to my religious posting schedule this Monday. I’ve been trying to juggle multiple heart attacks every day. You see, the NYU Publishing Institute is wrapping up this week and it has lead to: a panicked rush to finish the book imprint project, me gaining a nervous twitch of checking my phone and email constant to see if a potential employer has called me, and generally sleepless nights of worrying about how I’m going to have to start referring to myself as unemployed (or, a freelancer) rather than a student. Obviously, this dedication to worrying has eaten up a majority of my free time and I ended up neglecting the blog.
The rest of my free time was dedicated to fun things like celebrating my birthday for a second time, Sex in the City style (don’t judge me!) by going to Buddakan (where Carrie’s engagement party was held), Mongolia’s Bakery, and Carrie’s apartment. I also attended Jennifer Weiner’s reading last night at the Union Square Barnes & Noble. You can see how much worrying wears away at me.
Anywho. A theme of the program this week was educational publishing and how–since the audience is legally required to continue buying textbooks, the industry isn’t going anywhere–it’s a pretty steady place to get a job. In honor of this, (and a little belatedly) I thought I’d highlight the Augsburg College scholarly journal The Honors Review for the New Magazine Monday post of the week.
What They Want: interdisciplinary research articles that display illuminating, insightful and contemporary research at the undergraduate level. It’s a catch-all of topics so you can write about pretty much anything you can research well. Submissions must be sub-10,000 words.
When They Want It: Not officially posted yet, but sometime between November and February 2011-12
Who They Want It From: currently enrolled undergraduate students only.
How They Want It: sent via email to honrview@augsburg.edu. Further rules and submission guidelines.
Official Submission Response Time: 1 month 13 days
My Personal Submission (Acceptance!) Response Time: 1 month, 15 days to find out that I was one of the “possible candidates.” After revising the essay based on their suggestions, I had to wait another 3 days to find out that my paper was officially accepted.
Acceptance Statistics: check out their “submission manager” posting to see how many were submitted and how many were accepted/declined. (Mine was 1107. Don’t tell).
I was a little suspicious about it originally (like an over protective mamma bear) because, with scholarly publishing especially, your essay is judged by where it gets published.* But then I read The Honors Review virtual cover to virtual cover and was really impressed by the quality and by the extensive peer review selection process every writing submission goes through. I’m quite honored that my work has gotten published there. Read the latest issue here. Or at least skip through to my essay, “Lost in Translation: Retelling the Tale of Joan of Arc,” and look at the pretty pictures.
*If the quality of research in the other essays isn’t impressive, then it doesn’t even matter that you got published. In fact, it might even hurt your reputation as a writer. This is another reason why you should read literary journals and magazines before submitting to them! Do they deserve your awesome creative work? Will the journal improve your credentials or smear them?
Hannah Karena Jones 