At a university that focuses heavily on journalism, Sphere Magazine provides students with the opportunity to write creatively.
Sphere Magazine, the only undergraduate literary magazine on campus, will be publishing its 60th edition this year. The magazine comes out yearly.
Hannah Koerner, a nonfiction editor at Sphere, described the magazine as “an art journal."
Along with poetry, fiction and art, Sphere features nonfiction stories. The magazine also accepts submissions that do not fit into one genre, such as prose poetry or a script.
Nonfiction writing differs from fiction writing in the sense that it focuses on true events.
Koerner, a senior studying English, said nonfiction is “anything that is factually true.”
Michael Mayberry, the managing editor of Sphere, said the nonfiction writing that is submitted to Sphere consists mostly of essays and recollections of memories.
“The goal is to represent (memories) faithfully without intentionally doctoring any of the details,” Mayberry, a senior studying English, said.
Many of the nonfiction essays from last year focused on friends and families, Mayberry said.
Koerner said some writers get inspiration for nonfiction writing from the “fascination with how perception filters into events and memory.”
Perception also “shapes how you can creatively portray your own events and experiences” when it comes to nonfiction writing, Koerner said.
Koerner hopes that in this year's edition, writers “experiment with form” within their essays.
“I actually think it’s kind of a shame that the way we frame right-brain and left-brain people … some of the most beautiful writing I have ever read has been written by people who study (science),” Mayberry said.
Mayberry wishes that more people who are studying science would be comfortable with creative writing because he believes “(science and English) really enrich each other”.
This year, Sphere is adding a website to accompany their magazine, Mayberry said, so writers can share their work easier and because it is where publishing is going.
“It gives us the ability to share these stories and poems and pieces of art with our family members and friends that don’t live in Ohio,” Mayberry said.
He called to all students, no matter what major, to submit to Sphere. The deadline for submissions is Nov. 20.
