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The Suisun Valley Review was established as a way for the students of Solano Community College to learn the art and craft of editing a literary journal while putting together their own magazine once a year. Since the first issue was published in 1981, student editors have collaborated on over thirty issues of SVR, carefully selecting the contents from new and established writers from across the U.S. and abroad. The students are also directly involved with creating the overall design aesthetic and narrative of each issue. Each spring, all of their hard work and endless creative energy is repaid with a bound collection of prose and poetry, sold and kept as a testament to sleepless nights.
SVR's 2014 Submission Guidelines

Friday, March 18, 2011

Fiction...yep, it's for real!

Ok so first off we'd like to thank anyone who submitted to the Quinton Duval Award. The deadline of March 15th, 2011 is now passed and we wish you all the best of luck. However, ***the deadline for the Suisun Valley Review is set at April 1st***, so pleeeeeaaaasssseeee all you writers and artists get your poems, short stories and visual art pieces in ASAP.
 

Now on to the class this week which was all about fiction. We had a short packet of short fiction assigned to us. The goal: to determine what makes a good piece of fiction worthy of publishing in the Suisun Valley Review. Overall it was a very successful week and the lessons helped me personally to take down a few notes on what makes a good fiction piece. I know for the most part we all feel pretty comfortable critiquing fiction now as well as poetry and artwork.

Now it's a good thing we're comfortable and confident because we were assigned our first real packet this weekend. That's right, we're already looking at and critiquing pieces for inclusion in the magazine. Of course that isn't to say we don't want more, cause we do, we want A LOT more, so make sure you submit! Remember you can submit two ways, electronically and by mail. The email to submit is suisunvalleyreview@gmail.com. The address is:

Suisun Valley Review
English Dept/Humanities
Solano Community College
4000 Suisun Valley Road
Fairfield, CA, 94534

Also remember that your submissions must include a cover letter with your name, phone number, address, email and two to three lines about the author. Also if you send by mail you must include a self addressed stamped envelope.
 
Good Luck to all who submit!!!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Deadlines and Censorship

Hello creative world. I'm coming to you once again to tell you a few important things. First off, deadlines are fast approaching. Today is March 11th which means you have only 4 days a.k.a Wednesday the 15th to submit your poems or short fiction for the Quinton Duval Award (only open to SCC students.) Also, the deadline for the SVR is April 1st (open to anyone and everyone.) We have around 100 submissions right now which is about 1/10th of what we estimated at the beginning of the semester. SO PLEASE SUBMIT ASAP (no not actors, singers, authors and professionals) AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Now on to censorship, which is primarily what this week in class was about. We had a nice long discussion on bias, morals and what would be ok to publish and what wouldn't. Overall I think the point was that there shouldn't be too much we don't publish because of content. Once again, like I said in the last post, we decide to put pieces (art, fiction, poetry) into the magazine based on the craft of the piece. The main thing is that we should BE AWARE OF our morals and our bias, not get rid of them completely. So yes u can cuss in your piece, but only if it enhances it somehow. If not then it will be obvious and won't be included not because we're censoring you, but because it didn't help the poem or story at all. One thing I think would be censored would be hate pieces, for example a piece from a member of the KKK with hate content towards African Americans or Mexican Americans.