Et Cetera, Marshall University’s literary magazine organization, will have a launch party for its newest publication from 7-9 p.m. in the Memorial Student Center Shawkey Room April 26. The magazine publishes once a year in the spring.

Bethany Woods, Et Cetera’s editor-in-chief, said the party will be a celebration of everyone who contributed to the magazine in the past year.

“The launch party’s purpose is like a celebration of contributors that got their work published in the journal,” Woods, English graduate student, said. “It’s our way of saying, ‘hey, we’ve completed this thing, now we can relax and celebrate what we’ve made.’ But most of all, it’s a way to honor the people who have gotten published in the journal.”

The party will give contributors the opportunity to read their published work and will feature a slideshow of artwork submitted and accepted into the magazine. Woods said the party will honor both visual and literary submissions.

Et Cetera’s open submissions last from October to early January, and the journal accepts pieces of creative nonfiction, poetry, fiction and art.

“During that time, the staff will review the work from students, and that work will be anything from creative nonfiction, poetry, art or even hybrid submissions,” Woods said. “If something that students submit may not be able to clearly categorize, like screenplays, we’ll review that. Then we start thinking about how we want to construct the journal, how the pieces fall and stuff like that. We hope to have it published in April; it’s an annual journal being published every April.”

Each fall, the journal’s staff has a reading competition.

“Typically, every year we hold a fall reading competition where students can submit written work, and the winners of each genre will then be able to read their work at a location outside of campus where students can invite their friends and family to hear them read their work,” Woods said.

One of Woods’ goals for her remaining months as editor-in-chief is to expand the audience of the journal.

“The world of creative writing publishing is huge,” Woods said. “We are different in the way that we are contained to Marshall students. Only Marshall students can submit to the journal, or Marshall affiliates, and that’s quite unique for a literary journal. Normally it’s at least regionally, or the best way is to be nationally. I think a long-term goal would be opening that up to a broader spectrum, to kind of get our name out there in the literary journal world.”

Woods said she encourages those interested in submitting work or becoming general readers or editors to reach out to Et Cetera on social media. Its Facebook is Et Cetera Literary Journal, and the twitter is @litmag_etcetera. Another important aspect regarding the journal, Woods said, is it is always free to submit work.

“You are never going to pay to be published in our journal,” Woods said. “That’s not the case for every journal, so that’s important for us that we’re offering free submissions. We’re quite lucky to do so. The goal is to basically show people that there is artistic and creative talent at Marshall and to kind of pay homage and respect and honor that talent in a physical way. Like, ‘look what we can do in our community and give credit to that.’ I think it’s really important now, maybe more than ever, to place an emphasis on art and liberal arts. That’s the goal and the motivation there.”

Amanda Larch can be contacted at [email protected].