Photo Courtesy Steven Hughes
Paulina Longoria | THE RIDER
UTRGV Gallery magazine’s 2020 issue has earned four Gold Circle Awards in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s 37th annual contest.
Gallery is an annual arts and literary magazine created by students enrolled in the English 3350 course taught by Britt Haraway, creative writing associate professor. The magazine is published every spring semester, showcasing students’ work.
The Spring 2020 issue received the following Gold Circle Awards:
–first place in Experimental Fiction for “Magical Realism” by Lourdes Garcia and Jacob Villanueva
–second place in Humor for “Magical Realism” by Lourdes Garcia and Jacob Villanueva
–third place in Photography for “Hatman in Taxco” by Rebekah Gomez
–Certificate of Merit in Photography for “Blue Dream” by Myriah Acosta.
The Gold Circle Awards recognize superior work by student journalists from high schools and colleges throughout the United States, according to its website.
This year, the Columbia Scholastic Press Association drew 5,757 yearbook and digital media entries submitted in 91 categories and 5,194 newspaper and magazine entries submitted in 86 categories, the website states.
“I think the students are proud that their work was selected among these many, many entries from the various colleges across the country,” Haraway said. “We, as a magazine, are proud, too, because we think we’re doing a really good job. … But it is nice to have an outsider say the same thing.”
He said Gallery provides students an outlet to celebrate their creative projects.
“It gives them a forum to, really, put it out there,” Haraway said. “We want to get our work out there [for] the people around campus.”
Steven Hughes, a mass communication senior and Gallery’s editor-in-chief, said there are different criteria for art and literature to select the student’s pieces for the magazine.
“We had our art committee, who would oversee the selection of art pieces,” Hughes said, who also serves as editor-in-chief of Pulse magazine. “We also allowed them to decide what pieces we wanted to send out to [this competition].
He also said the prose and poetry editors selected the students’ pieces to submit for the competition.
Yazmin Sanchez, a UTRGV graduate and Gallery’s art director and Spanish editor, said she believes the magazine is meant to highlight the students’ work.
“We were there to make other people’s work shine, not our work,” Sanchez said. “We were just the medium, not the artist.”
She said it is hard for English students to find a place to showcase their work, and Gallery magazine is an amazing opportunity they can take to do so.
Haraway, Hughes and Sanchez encourage students to submit their work for Gallery’s Spring 2021 issue.
To view the different categories and submit pieces, visit gallery.submittable.com.
“It means a lot to the students, it means a lot to the university to see the campus community working together, not only with the classroom staff, but within the student body as a whole … to produce something of pure art,” Hughes said.
