In a small office with an even smaller staff, a few students at Arkansas State University are working to curate a collection of short stories, poetry, artwork and more all by A-State students. 

The Tributary is A-State’s yearly literary magazine designed to give a platform for students to share their creativity. 

Jessica Tran, a graduate student studying English from Crossett, Arkansas, serves as editor-in-chief of the Tributary. 

She said there are a variety of submissions to the magazine. The Tributary mostly consists of fiction short stories and poetry, but also accepts submissions in short memoirs, flash fiction, paintings, sketches, graphic designs and even photographs of sculptures. 

“We try not to limit anyone,” Tran said, “The point of a college publication is to have more freedom to submit things and accept things, so we try to accept as much as we can.” 

Kaylee “Lee” Pence, a senior English major from Rector, Arkansas, published a piece in last year’s edition and had a piece accepted for this year’s publication. 

“I’ve always wanted to publish my work. It’s been a lifelong dream of mine. The Tributary seemed like a great first way to do so,” Pence said. “Publishing with the Tributary is a great way to build your own community with others, as well as growing the number of student publishers at the Tributary.”  

Tran said the Tributary has struggled with marketing in the past. To promote the magazine, the staff began promoting it on Instagram and got a page on the A-State website last year. 

“It’s our own little literary magazine; we need to help boost it up and get it out there,” Pence said.

The staff consists of Tran, another editor and a few interns. 

Montana Shelley, a junior English major from Fisher, Arkansas, works as one of the interns. She started interning with the Tributary for her writing studies minor but said she chose it because of its value of student work. 

“I mainly work in outreach, so social media posts and tabling for events. (Interns) also reach out to faculty to ensure that students know about the Tributary and our submission deadlines,” Shelley said. 

Occasionally, the Tributary hosts events and readings on campus. Tran said their previous event celebrated Valentine’s Day. The staff asked people to write love letters to their pets, partners, friends or even themselves. A few of those were submitted and will be in this year’s edition. 

Next, the Tributary will host a reading at the Delta Symposium from 6-6:45 p.m. April 4 in Room 156 of the A-State Museum. 

“You can kind of think of that as a sneak peek of what’s about to be released,” Tran said. “It’s based on whoever wants to participate and have their work read in their voice. It’s also a chance to meet the contributors if you’d like.” 

In years past, the Tributary was a print-only publication. However, last year the magazine moved online and can be found as a PDF on the A-State website or in Apple Books for free. 

This year, the magazine plans to have an online version, but Tran said she hopes to have a print version as well. 

“I think us as English majors, especially on the team, we appreciate a print copy just as much as everyone and it means something for the authors to also have their work in their hands. We really want to have both available because, with the digital, it’s accessible,” Tran said. 

Printing can also be an issue due to the Tributary’s limited budget, she said. 

“It’s expensive to print, and we kind of have to plan out how many submissions we can accept because we can only try and get so much money from SGA,” Tran said. 

Currently, there is no set date for publication, but Tran said the Tributary will likely be published the week before graduation. 

“I just wish everybody knew that if they need a creative outlet, we’re here for them,” Tran said. 

To submit to the Tributary, email submissions to astatetributary@gmail.com. 

Categories: Arts & Entertainment