Aspirations Literary/Art Magazine
Aspirations, an annual literary/visual arts magazine published by Mercer County Community College for more than 25 years, cultivates the talents of area high school students and allows them to share their work with the community. Each year the college invites local high schools to participate in a competition from which the very best in original art and writing is chosen for publication. Each spring, when Aspirations is published, the college hosts a recognition program to acknowledge the contributors and their talents.
Aspirations opens for
submissions each Fall for the following year's publication.
2023 submissions are now closed.
SELECTIONS for Aspirations 2023
A panel comprised of MCCC English faculty and area high school English teachers selects the winning literary pieces. The MCCC Publications Office and MCCC Art/Design faculty choose the winning art.
Please look for updates here and via email regarding how we will honor this year's contributors in light of social distancing protocols.
Aspirations 2023 Writing Guidelines
- Each student may enter up to three works total. This means that if you submitted one visual art entry, you can only submit two literary art pieces.
- In addition to poems and short stories, you are encouraged to submit creative non-fiction. No research papers, please.
- Each entry MUST be ONE piece of art: ONE poem or ONE creative non-fiction piece. Do not include two poems as one submission.
- Each submission title MUST be the title of the piece submitted. For example, if your poem is titled "Sunset in Manhattan," then the title of your submission should be "Sunset in Manhattan."
- Your name should not appear in/on the submission.
- Entries must be supplied as Microsoft Word documents.
- The maximum word count for each piece is 750. Entries should be double-spaced in a plain, easy-to-read font such as Arial or Times New Roman.
- Each student must complete a Student Profile, including a brief (two or three sentences) biographical sketch, to be submitted with the Online Submission Form. The profile should be written in third person. Instead of "I like writing," you might write "Sarah Smith likes writing." If you plan on submitting more than one piece, you may want to copy/paste your biographical sketch so that you have it handy for each submission.
- All written entries will become the property of Aspirations 2023.
Aspirations 2023 Art Guidelines
- Each student may enter up to three works total. This means that if you submitted one literary art entry, you can only submit two visual art pieces.
- Each entry MUST be ONE piece of art: ONE photograph or ONE drawing. Do not include two pieces of art in one submission.
- Each submission title MUST be the title of the piece submitted. For example, if your photograph is titled "Sunset in Manhattan," then the title of your submission should be "Sunset in Manhattan."
- Attached files must be named as follows: "Original/unique title connected to the artwork." Generic file names such as "grayscale" and "grayscale1" are not acceptable. In our example, the file would be named "Sunset in Manhattan."
- Art will be selected for excellence, creativity and content, as well as for space availability and reproduction quality.
- The artist's name should not appear on the artwork. (Signatures on paintings are an exception.)
- Each student must complete a Student Profile, including a brief (two or three sentences) biographical sketch, to be submitted with the Online Submission Form. The profile should be written in third person. Instead of "I like photography" you might write "Sarah Smith likes photography." If you plan on submitting more than one piece, you may want to copy/paste your biographical sketch so that you have it handy for each submission.
- Entries can be one of the following formats: .jpg, .tiff, .png.
Submit an Entry Now
Click Here
Students need submit ONE Entry Form for EACH piece of art submitted.
If you submit three poems, you'll need to submit each separately.
All entry submissions include a Student Profile.
Important Dates
ENTRY DEADLINE: Wednesday, February 15
Contact
Nicole Homer, Aspirations editor
homern@mccc.edu
(609) 570-3316
Aspirations
Mercer County Community College
aspirations@mccc.edu
Fax: (609) 570-3844