Evaluating Submissions

What makes a submission to the Toyon Literary Magazine worthy of publication? What does worthy imply? Proper grammar, punctuation, spelling, a good thesis and main points that support it. In school students are taught a formula that equals good writing, and once you learn that formula it becomes difficult not to judge your own work and the work of others by that specific criteria.

What is good writing though? What does a Literary Magazine look for? “All editors like to think that had Walt Whitman sent ‘Song of Myself’ to them, they would have immediately recognized its wild originality and clamored to publish the poem” (pg. 269). Every magazine hopes to publish something unique and extraordinary so that they might gain recognition and expand the minds of their audience.

Though this may be an admirable goal, I feel that the place of Toyon is to offer a venue for those who have never published their works before, a place to showcase the minds of young adults from all around the world that each ended up in the same place at Humboldt State University (HSU). Each issue of Toyon is a small time capsule that gives it’s readers a glimpse into the lives of people in and around HSU that year.

As one of the submission reviewers for Toyon, I will be looking for obvious time and effort in each piece. It is also the job of the magazine to entertain it’s readers, and to encourage learning. We provide a place for people to tell their story.

~ Ciera