The new editorial staff for 23-24 is hoping to kick off the school year with a magazine edition featuring you. That’s right, you. All of you. As many of you as are willing to send us your stuff.

What stuff? Well, that depends – on you.

The End-of-Summer “Students Speak” Edition is meant to feature contributions from outside the editorial and reporting staff of The Buchtelite. We want to put a spotlight on the ideas, perspectives, opinions and creative work of our student body.

The edition is meant to hit stands the week before school starts in the Fall semester to welcome Freshman and to kick off the year in a student-focused way. The Buchtelite has been the editorially independent student voice at The University of Akron since 1889. That’s 134 years of voices. Will you add yours?

There are three ways to contribute:

1. Respond to one or both of two “voice of the student” questions our staff has posed.
2. Submit a creative response to a sculpture by Ashley Hetherington (photos below) that took our breath away. What kind of response? Write a description of the work with your own interpretation. Write a poem, a story, a song. Create a painting. The creative sky is the limit. You can even submit multimedia, though that won’t appear in the magazine edition (we’ll put it online).
3. Submit your work, including:
   • An essay about a meaningful experience at UA
   • An essay about whatever you fancy
   • An opinion-editorial on a topic that is important to you
   • A poem, short story, flash fiction piece or other creative writing
   • Non-fiction writing
   • A painting, photograph, sculpture, design
   • Other forms of art we haven’t explicitly mentioned
   • We don’t know, what else can you come up with?

Submit work here: Use Your Voice.
All submissions are due by Saturday, July 1 at midnight.

By submitting your work, you give The Buchtelite permission to use that work as a whole or in part on our website, social media platforms, in the print edition and in any other format. You retain the copyright to your work, and may otherwise license, sell or use your work as you see fit.

Ashley Hetherington Sculpture:

Hetherington’s sculpture (pictured below) has a story. But, we want you to forget about that (and definitely don’t go look it up). Look at this evocative work from all angles and respond however it moves you. Does it inspire a story? Does it have poetic meter? Should it appear in another visual work? You tell us!