By Christine Clark |ContributorLast semester Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Augusta University's bi-annual publication of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama and art, has become a national publication.Anna Harris-Parker, assistant professor of English and faculty adviser of Sand Hills since Fall 2012, offered insight into what this new shift means for the future of the publication."Opening our submission pool to the rest of the country presented several challenges—namely, advertising," she said. Despite little increase in funding, the publication managed positive outreach online."Thanks to a grant from the Educational Innovation Fund last year, we were able to advertise in NewPages, which gave us online exposure and included one of our flyers in a snail mail packet to writing programs across the country," she noted. "We also relied on social media to help spread the word."Alongside challenges with advertising, she said that "The most notable change has been the workload, especially once we began reading submissions in January."According to Harris-Parker, accomplishing the demands of the publication during class time poses challenges. The magazine has now opened their reading period for the upcoming Fall publication.“The course has changed from a seminar in literary editing and publishing to more of a publishing lab due to the amount of work that goes into making a book—especially one that nearly 400 people are contributing to. And new work continues to come in,” she said.Professor Harris-Parker also said that after the merger, “Timing felt right.”“There were a lot of new initiatives, and Sand Hills going national seemed like a great way to help bring positive national attention to our university,” she said.According to Harris-Parker, “Because Sand Hills remains committed to publishing work by AU students, students who publish in and work on the staff for the magazine now have a more meaningful line to add to their resumes. Their names will appear next to names of people with long lists of noteworthy publications.”Their goal is to publish the first online edition of the magazine in the fall. To help promote the upcoming issues and the new national status, faculty Jim Minick and Harris-Parker took the student staff to AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference and book fair in Tampa, Fla. from March 7 through March 11.“It’s the largest gathering of writers, publishers, and writing programs in the U.S.,” Mrs. Harris-Parker said, “The conference features three days of panel discussions on a number of writing - and publishing-related topics, as well as readings.”At the conference, students informed guests about Sand Hills, including their history and publishing interests, and handed out issues of the magazine, as well as koozies and flyers “to tell people who we are and why, in a market that’s flooded with small publications, they should send us their work,” Professor Harris-Parker said.According to Harris-Parker, AWP guests have already submitted to the publication. She added that while most guests reacted positively at the conference, some criticized the magazine employing a student staff. They disagreed on the basis that they believed students would be unable to identify with the subject matter that mature writers submitted to the magazine. Professor Harris-Parker disagrees.“AU has a lot of traditional students, but we also have nontraditional students and those students work on Sand Hills. They bring a different, necessary voice to the conversation. And just because we have a lot of students between the ages of 18-22 working on the magazine, too, that doesn’t mean that they don’t read widely and have diverse interests. They do,” she said.Despite the negativity about the staff, the experience was rewarding to both students and faculty.“For me, as a teacher, seeing our students get excited about some of the people, panel discussions, and readings they encountered at AWP is the best part," she said.Sand Hills launched their first national issue on May 10. It includes poetry, fiction, nonfiction and visual arts from 32 contributors across the United States.The Sandhills staff is currently reading through submissions for the first online issue this fall. They also plan to launch their new website during the fall semester.Any students interested in working on or contributing to the magazine are encouraged to email sandhillsmagazine@augusta.edu. The fall reading period should open around Sept. 1. Submissions are free for AU students and $3 for the public.
(This story was written for an assignment for Dr. Debra van Tuyll's Communication 2000's class during the spring semester.)