In the last week, with deadline fast approaching, over 150 pages of material was submitted by students into the email inbox of the Tower Light, Hillsdale’s biannual creative literature publication.
During the first half of the semester, students submitted poetry, prose, translations,and photography to the Tower Light’s editorial board, which includes the editor-in-chief, nine literature editors, and three photography editors. The board sifts through the submissions, and, toward the end of the semester, the chosen works are published in the Tower Light and distributed throughout campus.
The editorial panel meets weekly to select the best material for publication, although lately, due to the influx of submissions immediately prior to the deadline, they have had to double their meetings.
Senior Daniel Spiotta, editor-in-chief of the Tower Light, said the purpose of the publication is to provide students with an opportunity to publish great literature.
“That’s my goal — to make it as beautiful as it can be,” he said. “To do that, we try to take from as many poetical styles and as many prose styles as we can.”
In the light of that, short stories must be brief — between 500 and 1,000 words.
Sophomore Maggy Smith, literary editor, explained the reasoning behind the word limit.
“We want to get multiple people in, not just get one absolutely brilliant essay,” Smith said. “Because while it might be brilliant, we’re missing an equally brilliant haiku because we’ve used up so much space.”
Senior Andrew Dykstal submits regularly to the Tower Light. He said that limiting stories to a single page can be difficult.
“Seeing as, according to Aristotle, you’re supposed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, something is going to have to give,” he said. “And as we all know, heresy against Aristotle is a deep and dangerous philosophical crime.”
However, Dykstal said that the Tower Light’s constraints can in fact be helpful.
“When shorter is better, the additional constraints really help to improve technical writing,” he said. “Being able to write efficiently and briefly is a skill that, if you’re not writing for a publication, is something you don’t necessarily have to cultivate.”
Senior Shannon Odell, senior reporter for The Collegian, heads the photography board. She said the Tower Light looks for a good presentation of a specific idea, in addition to aesthetic beauty.
Tower Light pictures, Odell said, must possess a “very clear feeling” that the photographer was trying to capture “a very specific beauty” in taking the picture.
“I look for photographs that look like they have thought and meaning behind them,” she said. “They are not just photographs of something someone thought was pretty.”
For those interested in writing for next semester’s Tower Light, Spiotta said that taking the time to edit and refine is key to crafting good writing.
“In the writing of a poem, often there’s often a kind of inspiration — the words flow really well,” He said. “But you can enhance the thought behind the poem — and the subtlety and the beauty of the way that you present your poem — the more time you spend with it.”
