Tahoma West: Flex your creative muscles
Tahoma West is UW Tacoma’s literary arts magazine that takes submissions of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts of any kind. The process of choosing the pieces is a blind process — meaning they look at the pieces without knowing who produced them. This year the Editor-in-Chief, Maxine Metzger, has slightly changed the way submissions are happening by enacting a theme for the submissions to the journal. The topic for Volume 24 is socially-engaged art — pieces that use a personal perspective to raise awareness of social issues such as racism, sexism, homophobia, environmental issues, etc. The due date for submissions is March 28, the Saturday during spring break.
While sharing personal written work, or even artwork, can be anxiety provoking, it can also be one of the most rewarding things you can do. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and put yourself out there helps build your self-esteem and promotes the realization that you are capable. Not only this, but acquiring positive feedback from others doing the same thing is also very rewarding. You never know how your piece will connect with someone and help them through something by addressing an experience you have in common.
Once all the pieces are chosen there will be a party celebrating the launch of the new journal on May 28, 5–7 p.m., where creators will share their work and receive a copy of the new journal. It will also be open to the public so anyone will be able to come and enjoy the work that everyone put into making the new journal.
Another change this year to the publication was the addition of an online journal. With this, any type of subject matter can be written and have the possibility to be published. Sadly, the deadlines have already passed for this portion however, if interested, you can always look at what other students have submitted throughout the 2019–2020 school year at tahomawest.org/online-publication. Hopefully next year they will continue with the online submissions as well as journal entries. This collaboration allows more student work to be shared during the school year instead of condensing everything into one journal — essentially creating the potential to miss out on a student’s work.
Tahoma West does more than just put together a literary arts journal — they also hold events on campus throughout the year. Currently, they have planned an open mic night and pop up art gallery — the dates and times of these will be announced at a later date. If you would like to stay updated with Tahoma West’s events you can follow them on Twitter at @TahomaWest. Both of these events are great ways to see other works produced by students and could also inspire others to write something for the journal.
After the publication of Volume 24, Tahoma West will be looking for a new editor-in-chief and a new fiction editor for the next school year. If you enjoy reading people’s work, giving positive feedback and are interested in working with a small team to put together a journal, this could be the job for you. If you are interested email your resume, cover letter, and at least one writing sample to tahomaw@uw.edu.
