Alter Ego, the school’s literary magazine, continues to request either art or literature submissions from students.

“We’ve received in total no more than 20 literary submissions, which is less than we predicted with the collection system we set up this year,” said junior Tryphina Mikhail, the Alter Ego staff member in charge of literature submissions.

Each literary member in the club has been assigned two teachers and has placed a folder with submission forms and rubrics in the classrooms.

“Unfortunately, not enough kids know about the lit mag to actually participate in its production, which is really sad since it is a wonderful opportunity for budding writers to get their work published,” Mikhail said.  “I believe that we could get more submissions with the help of teachers, who could encourage their students to submit or even mention it in passing. The main problem is lack of awareness. If we can tackle that issue, I know the flow of submissions will increase substantially.”

Junior Brittany Cho, who is the magazine’s editor in chief, says she thinks she has pinpointed the problem.

“I think there’s a general lack of disinterest in a lot of the student population that doesn’t care about having their literature or art submitted if there’s no large reward or notoriety involved such as in state wide competitions,” she said. “Also, maybe they don’t realize the benefits of submitting or think to themselves that they’ll submit, but end up forgetting.”

However, she says, that there is a general lack of submissions every year, so this year is no different.

“We’re trying to rise, and it’s a process that won’t happen overnight,” she said. “Staff has gone up from about five people to about 16 to 20 in the past year, and the size of the magazine has risen from about 32 pages to 80 pages this year. We’re constantly making improvements, and I hope we can grow as a staff.”

Submissions for Alter Ego can be given to English teachers or emailed to [email protected].

By Sara-Renee Weatherby