Northern Eclecta
North Dakota State University
Art and Literary Journal
About Literary Publications
Literary Publications, otherwise known as English 313, is a class offered to NDSU students every spring semester. The class begins in early January, and the first day is an introduction to the class and also initial thoughts and ideas for the theme of this year’s journal. Right away, it feels a little bit fast-paced because it is. Since the class is only a semester long, that means the entire journal needs to be finished, from choosing a theme to actually getting the physical book published, in only one semester. Submissions are only accepted from about mid-January to early/mid-March, typically before or after spring break for NDSU.
The class is divided into 3 teams- the design team, the editing team and the promotions/social media team. Check out our blog posts to learn more about the tasks that these 3 teams strive to accomplish during the semester.
The class also participates in tabling, which is a fundraising technique on NDSU campus where we set up a table to give information about Northern Eclecta, and talk to people about submissions. We also sell merchandise such as donated books, and Northern Eclecta memorabilia- typically stickers and/or pins. The overall goal of tabling is to promote the journal, raise money to spend on the journal, and get people interested in submitting their work to the journal. Basically, it’s all about the journal.
The class is also very unique in the way that it is mainly student led. We have a professor to guide us and ask questions or talk to us about what we should be trying to do, but ultimately, it’s up to the students as to what they want to accomplish and how they will reach those goals. To this end, we have a team leader for each team, sometimes assistant leaders, as well as the editor in chief. The editor in chief mostly acts as the instructor for the class and helps navigate the course- making sure to keep the teams on track with their designated tasks.
Once the theme is chosen, the social media team immediately gets to work on getting the word out there, about the journal, the theme, and about submissions. Everyone can post something to their own social media accounts as well to get as many people interested as possible. The design team also designs the posters that we will vote on, as a class, to print out and post. We have multiple social media accounts dedicated to Northern Eclecta- You can check them out here:
The editing team starts off with looking over past journals, seeing the kinds of things that we like or dislike about them, and figuring out what types of content we’re looking for. The design team also looks over previous journals to see some of the design elements that we could potentially incorporate into the newest journal. The social media team mostly focuses on advertising Northern Eclecta and promoting it on the social media accounts in order to get creators interested in submitting their own work.
Once submissions start coming in, that’s when the editing and the design team get more work. As a class, we all decide which submissions we are accepting into the journal. The editing team proofreads the pieces that we accept, and the design team does a similar process with the accepted art submissions on a more visual level. We want to make sure that our journal only accepts the best work that we receive, so it is a competitive process. We also have some debates on whether a piece should or should not be accepted into the journal, mainly based on whether or not we think a piece fits into our theme.
No matter what team you’re on initially, there’s always room for you to switch to another team if that’s where you think you’re best suited, or if you just want to help out. This class is extremely flexible if you just let people know what you’re most interested in, and the most comfortable with.
Timeline
Here's a basic timeline, since the initial launching of our website, that shows how we, as a class and as an art and literary journal, strive to grow- both through student enrollment in the Literary Publication course, and through reaching out to the readers and contributors to Northern Eclecta
Our website was established in 2022. With the addition of a website, we have been able to receive and publish more mediums of original creative works. We can now accept longer written works, as well as videos, music, and other submissions that we were unable to incorporate before the use of a website was possible.
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In 2023, our name was changed from Northern Eclecta Literary Journal, to Northern Eclecta Art and Literary Journal. With this change, we wanted to encourage our readers to submit more original artwork.
Having more art and other mediums of creative works, our 2023 journal We've Been here Before, was recognized by NCTE's REALM program, and earned a Superior rating.
The biggest change for literary publications in 2024, was switching to Canva to put our journal together. This may not seem like a big move, but for the design team, this was a game changer. The platform was much easier to use, and the team was already familiar with the app because that is what the majority of the posters and graphics were created on.
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In 2024, we also added Northern Eclecta Merchandise to our repertoire. We sold merch during tabling events, and tabled a lot more than we have in previous years so that we could raise more money and so we could promote more submissions.
History of the Eclecta Moth
When the students who were working on the first volume of Northern Eclecta in the spring of 2007 decided that Northern Eclecta would be a good name for the journal, they searched online to see if any other publication was using that name. Although they found no other journals with that title, they discovered that there is a moth called Bucculatrix eclecta- and an image of a moth has been a part of all Northern Eclecta designs ever since. During Spring Semester 2012, Lawrence Vanderbush created this three-dimensional moth using a wirewrap technique.
This information can be found in Volume 6 of Northern Eclecta in our free Archives. Check out more of our journal here:
You can also see more of the history of Northern Eclecta in the For the Readers sections of our journals!
Contact
We're always looking for more interactions with our readers and prospective students to the class. Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you have about our class, journal or social media accounts.
1340 Administration Ave, Fargo, ND 58105