Austin’s creativity is going to be on full display in the next Austin Living, which should be available in late June.

As you may have read in my column last week, we’re turning a portion of the July/August Austin Living into a literary magazine by printing art, poems, short stories and other submissions.

This is the first time we’ve accepted these submissions for Austin Living. As you can imagine, the idea came with a bit of hesitation. We didn’t doubt Austin and Mower County’s creativity and skill — we’ve seen a wide variety of local talent on display at the ArtWorks Festival, at the ArtWorks Center, through articles we publish and around town.

But I always face the nagging fears that come with trying something new: “Will it work?” and “Will people submit?”

I’m happy to say local artists and writers came through. As of Wednesday, we had more than a dozen submissions that included photographs, paintings, poems, short stories and more. And I’m sure several people waited until the last minute — the Friday, May 22, deadline — to submit.

It’s been a fantastic experience so far to see the great work completed by local artists and writers, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity to share their work with the public when Austin Living is published.

I — like everyone else at the Herald and Austin Living — want to thank everyone for sharing their work.

Don’t be disheartened if we’re not able to publish your work. We’ve received several submissions, but there’s a limited amount of space for publication. Sadly, we won’t able to run everything.

All the pieces we’ve received have been fantastic, so the Austin Living staff will face tough decisions when deciding what we’ll be able to include.

Don’t hesitate to sneak in a submission over the weekend. After all, Monday is Memorial Day, so we’ll still consider submissions that we see in the newsroom@austindailyherald.com first thing after the holiday.

 

What comes next

Each person who submitted should have received a response email thanking them for their submission. If you submitted and did not receive an email, don’t hesitate to call me at 507-434-2235. We’d hate for someone’s submission to get lost in email limbo or a spam folder. You can also call Trey Mewes at 507-434-2214.

Don’t be surprised if we reach out to you with questions about your submissions. We may contact artists to request larger images. We require large/high-quality file sizes to ensure the images come through as the best quality possible in print.

We may contact writers with questions about formatting and edits as well.

Thanks again to all the artists and watch for the July/August issue for some of these great pieces.