Byzantium, A Literary Annual
Byzantium is the English department's award-winning annual literary magazine produced entirely by undergraduate students. The magazine's poems and stories are chosen in Cal Poly's longstanding annual Al Landwehr Creative Writing Contest, for which undergraduate and graduate students from all majors submit their work. Two separate faculty judging committees, one for poetry and one for fiction, read the entries blind, along with student editors. The winning poems and stories, along with the judges’ choice entries, are published in Byzantium. Along with the prestige of publication in the journal, first, second and third place winners are given cash prizes.
Begun in 1990, Byzantium has published literary works of remarkable quality, and many of the student winners in the writing contest have gone on to prestigious graduate schools in creative writing, including Columbia, Emerson, UC Davis, Houston, UC Irvine, Oregon, San Francisco State, among others. Byzantium complements the English Department's creative writing emphasis by providing both an in-house publication goal and a capstone work that demonstrates our student and department commitment to creative writing.
Typically, two English majors are chosen as co-editors. These two students work in tandem with a student art director chosen from the Art & Design Department. Numerous English majors compete for the privilege of editing the magazine, and those who are selected usually have editing experience, business acumen, desktop publishing skills, a fundraising vision, and the ability to work collaboratively under deadline. The magazine has been cited for its literary excellence and has twice won awards for design.
Byzantium is distributed throughout Cal Poly campus and San Luis Obispo each spring. Pick up your free copy in the English department office.
For any further information about Byzantium, please contact professors Kevin Clark or Todd Pierce.
The 2012 Editors of Byzantium are Brita Shallcross and Chrissy Berry.
Byzantium, volume 21
Spring 2011
Design work by Art and Design senior
Allie Harold
Author Portraits
Brandon Smith
Poetry Winners
1st Place Sea Glass by Anna K. Bush
2nd Place Babcia, Contraceptives, and Spirits by Kate Malczynski
3rd Place What My Father Doesn’t Know Yet by Jaquelin Sicilia
Fiction Winners
1st Place Ferryman by Jess Zwicker
2nd Place Brand New Bones by David Liebig
3rd Place Dideon’s Journal by Aaron Rowley's