X7: Passport Magazine
Posted by Andrew Brown
I plan to submit my Project 2, titled “The Journeyman”, to Passport Magazine. Passport is a student-run publication and bills itself as Duke’s “International Magazine”. Passport “brings educational and entertaining stories to the Duke community” and ”will cover almost anything, and the more unique the story, the better.” The magazine is published twice a year and attempts to cover at least six continents in every issue. Submissions to Passport must be 500-1500 words, which works great since “The Journeyman” is ~1400 words. Submissions are accepted via email and then edited collaboratively in a group setting. I think “The Journeyman” is perfect for Passport because it is a unique, engaging profile with an international angle. In fact, “The Journeyman” touches on almost every theme covered by Passport: travel, cultural assimilation, foreign culture, and even foreign policy.
Cabinet and Alexander McQueen
Posted by Zeewan Lee
If I produced anything that is meaningful and polished enough to be submitted for publication, it would be my project 2, the one about Alexander McQueen’s grotesque. The piece came out of my X4, and went through two processes of revision before it turned itself into the final version. I spent a considerable amount of time planning, researching, writing, and revising the piece, and I think it deserves a chance for publication more than any other writings I have done so far in this semester.
My project 2 is about Alexander McQueen, a famous yet super-odd designer, his take on the concept of grotesque, and the evolution of the concept. I have been looking for an appropriate art magazine to submit my work and what I have found is this amazing magazine: Cabinet. Before I tell you what the magazine is about, let us hear what other people have been saying about the publication:
“Cabinet is my kind of magazine; ferociously intelligent, ridiculously funny, absurdly innovative, rapaciously curious. Compared to it, every other magazine is a walking zombie.” — Slavoj Zizek, a Slovenian philosopher
“Opening an issue of Cabinet is like finding out that Karl Marx is related to the Marx Brothers.” — Jonathan Ames, novelist
“Curios and curiouser! The finest thing to come out of Brooklyn since our grandmother, every issue of Cabinet is a deft collection of ephemera and anecdote, a Muetter Museum of themes. Every time, we’re left in the dust, wondering where they find their peculiar contributors.” — “Best Art Magazine 2003,” New York Press, October 2003
As soon as I read these comments, I knew I wanted to submit my work to Cabinet. I did further research and found out that Cabinet, a magazine of art and culture, publishes wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary contents. The magazine accepts submissions of varied formats — including columns, essays, reviews, interviews, special artist projects, etc. — that range anywhere from 1000 to 3500 words.
Cabinet defines itself as a hybrid of a popular arts/design magazine and a scholarly journal: playful and serious, exuberant and committed. Since my project 2 is not only a summary of some of the most praised and noted collections of McQueen but also an in-depth exploration about the idea of the grotesque, I believe my piece can also be called an intersection of popular (fashion) culture and a scholarly exploration of an idea that is a good fit for Cabinet. The magazine expects writers submitting their work to use as little artistic jargon as possible, and since I have been working at reducing jargons and explaining abstract/ complex concepts addressed in my writing through the past few revisions, I do not think I need more work with reducing jargons. My piece has about 2200 words, so it has an appropriate length for submission. For now, I am thinking about including more examples of Alexander McQueen’s grotesque by introducing more of his previous fashion shows, but I am not sure if such revision is necessary. I think the beginning and ending paragraphs of my piece can be worded better, so I will definitely work on improving those parts.
X7: Encompass
Posted by Lawson Kurtz
I am planning to submit “BLACKOUT” for publication in Encompass magazine. Encompass is a publication of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke. Like the name might suggest, Encompass includes a wide variety of work spanning numerous different academic disciplines. The goal of Encompass is not simply to say what is or is not ethical, but raise issues and start discussions about important ethical issues at Duke and in the world in general. The length of the pieces in Encompass varies, but pieces are generally confined to a two page spread (~1500 to 2000 words). Encompass readily accepts submissions via email (encompassmag@gmail.com), and will consider articles for further editing/publication upon receipt. I think my piece about alcohol would be a good fit for this publication because it perfectly fulfills the mission of the magazine. It takes an extremely important and relevant issue, explores it from some less-conventional angles, and generally discusses its broad ethical ramifications.
X7: Publication
Posted by Erica Lin
Initially, I had decided to submit Project 2: Denied Entrance as an editorial to a newspaper with publications that targeted the medical community, but I was unable to find one that my piece would qualify for. Then, I decided to submit it to an online blog that collected stories thought about the application process; however, the majority of the blogs I browsed through were individual blogs. Although I really wanted to publicize this piece (I feel that handling an academic rejection is applicable to many people), I finally relented, attempting to submit one of my other pieces. In this search of a website for publication, I stumbled upon Creative Nonfiction, which was currently seeking blog posts that focused on foods, “including restaurant reviews; tales of meals gone awry; secrets, tips, and kitchen short cuts; confessions from cooks, chefs and/or servers; an examination of the kitchen life, and so on. Narrative, narrative, narrative” to re-print in their March 2011 Food Issue. I thought this was perfect for one of my posts from Project 1: E-Diary of the (Un) Accomplished. But wait! The deadline was 11:59 PM EST, Monday, November 29, 2010, and submissions required a blog. Then, I remembered that I had actually established a blog, temporarily , to familiarize myself with the blog designs, prior to turning in my finalized Project 1. I quickly re-activated the blog and submitted my post.
http://www.creativenonfiction.org/thejournal/submittocnf.htm
Unzipped
Posted by: Alexandra McKnight
I plan to submit my second project to Unzipped, the Duke Journal of Gender and Sexuality. Attempting not to quote exactly from the email/handout I received, Unzipped is an interdisciplinary publication that highlights essays and studies on the topics of gender and sexuality. The pieces may be between 1,000 to 5,000 words. Since the publication accepts work across disciplines the pieces may be original work, such as what we do in this class, or critical analysis of other published work.
In order to submit to Unzipped, you must include an abstract of no more than 200 words, you must submit the paper via Microsoft attachment, and submissions must include the author’s name (on all pages of the work), email, year and university, as well as the title, word count, and “discipline” of the submission. All the general technical stuff applies (as in you can’t submit work that has already been published, you can’t submit work that you’re trying to get published elsewhere, and you need a works cited page).
I’m going to send my Project 2 because it’s about both gender and sexuality (bada-bing, bada-boom). So that’s pretty simple. Unzipped is also a brand new Duke publication so it would pretty exciting to be accepted in their first edition.
X7: Office of Durham and Regional Affairs, Eruditio
posted by Margrette Kuhrt
I wrote about personal events in my life so I was a little concerned about finding a publication outlet for either of my Projects. My first piece, although it was quite personal, could also be applicable to Duke/Durham relations as it explores the importance and real benefit there is to sharing the city (and parts of our campus) with locals. I plan to contact the Office of Durham and Regional Affairs to see if perhaps they would be interested in including a link to a condensed version of my Project One on their website as a sort of testimonial that could point to the positive connections and all there is to gain from stepping outside of our bubble and not only accepting, but treasuring the local Durham residents. I will no doubt need to shorten my piece somewhat but I hope they are open to the idea!
I am also considering Eruditio which is a Duke publication that features full-length academic papers. Because my Project One was about 8 pages, the length won’t be an issue, but again, I am hoping that they find my writing to be relevant to people beyond those directly involved. I think the Duke/Durham partnership idea is a strong one, though, and hopefully that will resonate!
I am also still prowling to find additional publications to submit either of my Projects!
X7: Creative NonFiction
It was a little difficult finding where I could possibly publish my two Projects. My first project about my Gramma and her Alzheimer’s would fit with an Alzheimer’s website. There are a few like alz.org or memorystudy.org. They accept all stories about Alzheimer’s from those who have loved ones who are going through it or even from those who have Alzheimer’s themselves. It was incredible to read all of the stories. The best part was I could handle reading them without going to pieces. Project 1 was difficult to write, but very therapeutic.However, I do not think I want my story published with the others. I think I will just keep it to myself…and yall. 
Project 2 is a little bit more difficult for me to find a place for it to belong. It is a piece about experiencing a foreign culture, however I’m not in the country of the foreign culture. Most publications on foreign culture expect you to actually be in that country. I was at The Japan Festival and immersed in Japanese culture- but it was in Duluth, GA.
Then lo and behold – I get a genius idea. I type in “Creative NonFiction” and there actually is a publication called Creative Nonfiction. It takes un-themed submissions year round of writing that can be about anything. So I guess I will give this publication a shot. I think I will turn in my Project 2 to this place and see what happens!
X7: Passport Magazine
Posted by Dayo Oshilaja
http://www.duke.edu/web/passport/index.html
I have decided to publish one of my pieces in the Passport Magazine. It is a student run publication that began in Spring 2005. It has an international theme and publishes entertaining accounts of people’s travels world-wide. The magazine is published bi-annually in December of the Fall Semester and in April of the Spring Semester. The magazine specializes in collaborative work, and works closely with its writers to develop and publish articles and photos.
There is a 500-1500 word limit for all submissions so I will have to cut down my piece. They also have a list of suggested topics which include, travel experiences, destinations, cultural discussions etc. There are also guidelines for how you should cite your article. Since I have missed the deadline for the Fall Issue, I will submit my piece for the Spring one.
I will submit my Project One to the magazine because it has an international theme and focuses on my adventures, or more aptly, my mis-adventures during my first day in London. I plan to submit this piece next week and hopefully it will make it into the April issue of the magazine, so be on the lookout for that!
X7: Falcone and Towerview
by Eriks Reks
So I’m looking to submit a piece I revised, but never handed in as a “Revision” assignment. (Don’t worry; the prof said it was cool). The piece is about Sonny Falcone and partly how I reflect on my experience as a football player. I talked about maybe sending it in to a more “athletics” inclined publishing, but I thought hard about this and I figured Sonny is a person that all Dukies should recognize; so why not a non-athletic forum?
I emailed Lawson—actually like five minutes ago—about sending it in to Towerview magazine, a local Duke magazine with articles featuring various personalities and thing-a-ma-jigs, e.g. I remember reading an article about Steve Galanis and Spartan Entertainment. Hopefully they too recognize Sonny as someone worthwhile and would accept the piece.
I was told that I need to write up a summary of what the piece is about and just send in the email. I’ll probably do that within the next 10 minutes.
Laterz.
X7: Duke News and Communications
posted by Carol Shih
I plan to submit my Project Two piece, “Elite Weddings” to Duke’s Office of News and Communications. The office invites faculty and members of the Duke community to submit articles to their op-ed program where they’ll publish it on their website.
The Office of News and Communications is geared mainly toward the Duke community, but often their articles get picked up by local newspapers. Instructions for submitting an article are located here:
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/duke_community/oped.html
According to their webpage, I’ll have to limit my piece to 750 words (no problem!) and make it seem more relevant (that’s slightly a problem). But aren’t weddings always relevant?
Although my piece may not be news-worthy, I think it will be a good fit for this publication because my piece is already written in the form of an op-ed. Plus the editor, Keith Lawrence, will work with you help make your op-ed ready to submit. What a good deal!