PORT ANGELES — Aspiring authors of all ages — from elementary students to older adults — are invited to submit their best poems and stories for the 2017 Tidepools magazine contest.
The contest also includes categories for fine art, digital art and photography.
Only residents of Clallam and Jefferson counties are eligible for the contest.
The contest is sponsored by Peninsula College, The Buccaneer student newspaper and the Peninsula Daily News.
Winners in each category will receive cash prizes and have their work published in the 2017 edition of Tidepools magazine.
The 53rd edition of the literary magazine — designed by Peninsula College students and published by the college — will be available to the public June 7, 2017, at The Bookaneer college bookstore, local bookstores and libraries.
The contest is split into adult, Peninsula College and youth divisions.
“We do have specific prizes and categories for kids and various age groups,” said Michael Calvin Mills, Tidepools magazine faculty adviser, via telephone this week.
First-place winners in each adult and Peninsula College student category will receive $100.
First-place winners in each youth category — further divided into categories for youths younger than 9, youths ages 10 to 13 and youths ages 14 to 17 — will receive $25 and their work published in the magazine.
Works can be submitted online at http://tidepools.pencol.edu/submissions; via mail to Tidepools magazine, Peninsula College, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd., Port Angeles, WA 98362; or in person at the college during regular business hours.
Submissions sent via mail or hand-delivered must include an entry form available for download online at http://tinyurl.com/pdn-entryform.
Adult entries are $6.50 and youth entries are $4.
Entries must be submitted or postmarked by Jan. 13.
Submissions are judged blind. As such, the creator’s name must not be on the work itself.
The judges are picked from the community, Mills said.
“We recruit judges [such as] local librarians, school teachers, artists, musicians and writers,” he said.
“All the pieces that are entered in the contest go directly to our judges. Our judges pick the winners, and we guarantee the judges that we will publish whatever they pick.”
Those who do not win first place in their categories might still be included in the magazine, Mills said.
“The judges make the first round of picks for the winners, and then the students … get to serve as editors in terms of what content goes into the magazine,” he said.
“They look at all the entries that were not the winning entries” and choose what to print.
“They try to agree on the best pieces that they want to publish,” Mills said.
Non-contest works also can be submitted for consideration free of charge but will not be eligible for a cash prize. Such entries also will have a chance to be included in the upcoming edition of Tidepools.
“You don’t have to be entering the contest to be published in the magazine,” Mills said.
“People can just send us pieces for free, and they might be published. They just don’t have a shot at the prize money.”
Those chosen to be included will receive a free copy of the magazine, Mills said.
Mills said about 45 original pieces make it into each edition of the magazine annually.
“It is full color and is about 116 to 120 pages every year,” he said.
“It is almost like a novella.”
The magazine has been published for more than half a century as a community service and as a tool to teach college students, Mills said.
“The students keep it moving and the college has continued to support the project just because we feel it is an important venue for the arts in general,” he said.
“It basically has come down to the work of the students who have produced it. It has been a class for quite a long time. The students each get the title ‘co-editor’ of the magazine. They get some hands-on experience editing, publishing and marketing” the publication.
The magazine also acts as a snapshot in time of local culture, Mills said.
“If you go to your local libraries, you can see 50 years, more or less, of the magazine, and it serves as a kind of archive for the creative work that is going on here” on the Peninsula, he said.
“This is kind of a fun way for people to be able to look around and see what kind of art and what kind of music and writing is going on.”
Music chosen for the magazine is included on a CD found in the magazine, Mills said.
For more, visit tidepools.pencol.edu or call 360-417-6462.
________
Features Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or at cmcdaniel@ peninsuladailynews.com.
