Submit!
Enlight’ning now considers submissions from creative Harker Middle School students year round! So don’t wait for a deadline; send us your best work whenever the creative spirit strikes. 6th, 7th and 8th grade students are all equally eligible to have their work considered for publication. Enlight’ning publishes visual art, photography, poetry, prose, music and short films.
All right! you’re thinking, how do I do it? Here are some notes to help you out.
Evaluating Submissions
Where? Submissions should be sent from your Harker student account to enlightning@harker.org
How? Send it with the title and medium in the subject line. For example, a subject line might read, photo, Santa Cruz Sunset, or story, Playing with Fire. See more information about different types of submissions below.
What then? When received, the work is anonymized by the faculty advisors, to help assure it will be considered on its own merits. Then, the pieces are rated and critiqued by our club members, the magazine staff. In making their evaluations, club members consider subject, technique, originality, and artistry. Each piece is evaluated by multiple students. Occasionally, if written work is strong but not yet fully developed, the magazine’s editors or advisors may meet with the author to suggest revisions.
Permissions: If your work is submitted for publication, you are understood to agree it may be published online. Our journal does not have browser-searchable content, but may be seen by the general public outside Harker if a person has the online address.
Specific Types of Submissions
Stories: Stories emailed from your student account to our address should be a Word doc or a PDF. They should be titled, set in 10 to 12 point, clearly legible fonts, and be double-spaced.
Poems: Poems emailed from your student account to our address should be a Word doc or a PDF. They should be titled, set in 10 to 12 point, clearly legible fonts, and be single-spaced.
Photographs: Photos emailed from your student account to our address should be high-resolution JPEG, PNG, or similar. If submitting more than one in a single email, please note the photo titles in the email’s text. Also, please let us know if there was computer manipulation of the photo or other enhancements, so that we can caption your work correctly, if published.
Artwork: Photos of artwork emailed from your student account to our address should be high-resolution JPEG, PNG, or similar. In such cases, if the piece is accepted we will work with you to obtain a higher resolution image. For our captioning, please note in the email’s text what media you used. For example: oil pastel with pen and ink.
Digital Film: Send a link to youtube, vimeo, or other online platforms. We’re eager to see your film! We’ve got some content restrictions for you to consider, however. Your movie can be funny, sad, informative, poetic… but what it can’t be is a lip synch. While those movies are fun to make with friends, for the purposes of this journal, we are looking for students’ original creative work. Also, please avoid using copyright restricted music and images.
Music: Submit a titled MP3 of your original musical composition to the Enlight’ning email address. Again, please title the MP3, so we can easily tell the compositions apart once they are uploaded on our end. Garageband or electronically played submissions are fine, and we published some great ones in this first edition. We would also love to have some submissions from singer/songwriters, or student musicians playing their own compositions.
Where? Submissions should be sent from your Harker student account to enlightning@harker.org
Go to it! We’re looking forward to seeing your work!