By: Mason Gallina
As our class begins to call for submissions to our own online literary magazine, Klio, we have made it our goal to connect the entire Penn State community.
In order to do so, we have reached out to every Penn State commonwealth campus 
in an attempt to gain submissions from students in other locations. Because some of these campuses may have their own literary magazines already, this may be a bit of a challenge.
Our goal is not to step on the feet of those other literary magazines, but rather to build a literary community among Penn State campuses and to improve our own literary magazine by having a diverse collection of pieces.
Creating a literary magazine takes a lot of work and a lot of brainstorming. Throughout the semester, our class has been looking at, and critiquing, a lot of online literary magazines to gain some ideas about what we want and don’t want to include in our own site. To further this search, I have looked at pre-existing Penn State Commonwealth campus online literary magazines to see what they have to offer.
The Abington Review
The The Abington Review is obviously the literary magazine at the Penn State Abington campus. It is strictly an undergraduate magazine including collections of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art. The Abington Review publishes an online and print edition every year.
The Abington Review won the AWP’s Directors’ Prize for content for volume 14.
Submissions are through the Abington Review website and extremely easy to do.
However, to submit to the Abington Review, one must be an undergraduate student at the Abington campus.
Absence
Greater Allegheny’s literary magazine is a little different than others. Their mission is to highlight the best work by students, staff, faculty, and alumni over the past year.
This literary journal will be available for the first time in paper at a live event in April called, “Celebration of the Arts: A Reading and Reception.”
Absence offers many scholarship opportunities through their creative writing contests. Winners receive $1,000 scholarships to their campus as well as publication in the next issue.
From the Fallout Shelter
This is Harrisburg’s literary magazine and they aim to publish students’ creative works, including poetry, short stories, photography, paintings, graphics, creative essays, and one-act plays.
From the Fallout Shelter was founded in 1971 and has been published annually ever since, offering a print edition as well as online exclusives.
Submissions are open to students of all majors at Penn State Harrisburg.
Hard Freight
Hard Freight is Altoona’s literary magazine, which includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art pieces. It is also produced by Altoona students, for which many of them receive class credit.
Hard Freight offers an open mic night once a semester, which is open to students as well as the Altoona community. This is a great way to allow students and others to showcase their work to an audience.
Hard Freight does not limit how many pieces one person can submit but submitting must be done through email.
Lake Effect: An International Literary Journal
Penn State Behrend’s literary magazine is an international literary journal that is published every February.
The Lake Effect’s submissions are open to anyone and everyone.
Although this is a print journal, they do offer some online content as well some local events.
Panorama: Journal of the Arts
Penn State Beaver’s journal is only published in the Spring semester. Their works include fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, art and photography from Beaver campus students, faculty, and staff.
Beaver also has very strict guidelines that must be followed in order to have your work considered.
Penn in Hand
Penn in Hand is open to submissions by Penn State Brandywine Students and Faculty. Penn in Hand “provides an outlet for all manners of creative works.”
They do not have their own website but to get involved, one can reach out to their president, Andrew Leake.
Shadow of Birds
This literary magazine is founded, run and supported by Penn State Berks students. They accept most forms of writing but encourage students to submit artwork, music and other multimedia as well.
The Berks campus offers something called Congress of Ravens Events (“CORE”), which is where students and faculty are encouraged to bring some of their works to read and share with others.
As Klio starts to come together, I saw many similarities between it and other campus’s literary magazines.
I really like that many of the campuses held meetings or open mic nights where people can go and share their work with an audience. I think this is something that is most definitely beneficial to promoting a literary magazine.
Having said that, Klio will be hosting an “Art Jam” Thursday, October 27 at Webster’s Bookstore and Cafe at 7 p.m.
All Penn State students will have the opportunity to have a great time and bring their best creations to our open mic event and share pieces of art, writing, and music.
On the other hand, I was surprised how many literary magazines were open to staff, faculty and alumni submissions. This is something we considered but ultimately voted against.
If we stick to our mission of connecting the community of Penn State students, Klio should see plenty of submissions.
Feel free to comment on this post to correct or provide additional information in regards to any of the previously mentioned content.