Graphic by Steven Mynott
By Steven Mynott
The Island Fox is CI’s student-created literary journal. Every year, the Island Fox gives students an opportunity to showcase their creativity through poetry, short stories, visual art, photography or virtually anything that can be printed in a book. Students who work for the Island Fox get great experience learning the ins-and-outs of the publishing industry.
This year, the Island Fox had over 200 submissions, and in the end, they were only able to accept less than 100 due to page count limitations. The art and marketing director, Natalie Blakey, senior anthropology major with minors in creative writing and history, said that choosing which submissions to accept was the most challenging part of the entire process,“It was like am I actually good enough at these things just like myself to judge them for others?” The team developed an anonymous rating system to help curate submissions. By the end of the process, they had to go back and reevaluate some of the pieces that were rated early on because there were so many high-quality submissions; high praise indeed for our dolphin community. Co-managing director Leah Jones, senior psychology major with a minor in creative writing, said “It’s not a matter of who’s deserving or who has talent, it’s just whatever meshes best with the current year and what our current team’s vision is.” In the end pieces could not be chosen based on talent or technical execution alone, but rather, they had to be chosen based on uniqueness and heart.
With the end of the semester quickly approaching, the Island Fox team is preparing to release the end result of all their hard work. A release event is planned for May 10 between 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Studio Channel Islands 2222 Ventura Blvd., Camarillo, CA, 93010. Everyone is welcome to attend, including students, staff, faculty, alumni, family and friends. Students whose submissions were accepted will be there to either read their pieces or talk about them. There will be food, drinks and of course, copies of this year’s Island Fox journal.
If you would like to submit your work for next year, submissions typically open around January or February. Look out for posters around campus or an announcement on the Island Fox Instagram: www.instagram.com/csuci_islandfox
If you have already submitted your work in the past, you should get an email announcement around the same time as well.
If you would like to be a part of next year’s Island Fox team, you can add it as a class to your schedule. The course is called ENGL 465, Creative Writing Project. It is a requirement for CI’s creative writing program.
