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Ourglass Student Publication
The "best-of-the-best" creative writing produced by our talented community of students
Ourglass, now in its 43rd year of publication, is the journal of the English and Graphic Design programs at CCD. It is dedicated to providing a forum for the poetry, prose, drama, design, and artwork of our students. Visual arts and design work included in each Ourglass issue is selected from the Annual CCD Student Art & Design Show. For more information about submitting student artwork, please contact Lincoln Phillips, Professor of Visual Arts.
If you are attending CCD, please consider submitting your work. We accept submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and one-act plays, as well as any interesting combinations thereof, through this online form. Please note that "best of the best" means we seek to honor the complexity, beauty, and variety of the voices present in CCD's students, and we encourage you to submit.
Past works were written by people from a variety of backgrounds (both native and non-native English speakers and have included language other than English) who contributed works that expressed complexity, vulnerability, and took risks. All work submitted must include your name, current phone number, and an email address you check frequently.
Important Information
While we don't impose limits on submissions, here are our suggestions that will help you get into our pages. Please indicate if your submission is poetry, prose, essays/criticism, or a short play. Please do not combine separate genre submissions into one file.
- Poetry: Submit 3-5 poems. We are not averse to form or style.
- Prose (short-story fiction/nonfiction/flash fiction): Submit one piece or a collection of pieces, preferably under 8,000 words.
- Essays/Criticism: Submit one piece or collection of connected pieces, preferably under 8,000 words.
- Short Plays: Submit one play preferably between 10-12 pages. Plays should be in script format.
Response time: We accept submissions from each academic year (summer to spring) and respond in August. Please Note: Due to the volume of work we consider, it may take 4-6 months (sometimes longer) to hear from us. Please be patient in our response time. If you're not accepted, please do try again next year! We love hearing from CCD students and alumni.
All writing submissions (excluding student editors) will be eligible for the Leonard Winograd Award, named in honor of longtime English professor and editor of Ourglass Leonard Winograd. The award is given annually to recognize excellence in writing. Finalists are chosen by the editors, and the winner is selected by an anonymous faculty member not associated with Ourglass. To donate to the Winograd Award, go to the CCD Foundation website. Be sure to mark this as a "Tribute Gift" to the Winograd Award.
When you donate for a past issue, you are not only helping Ourglass and the Leonard Winograd Award, you are also helping the CCD Foundation and their scholarship fund to aid other CCD students. We’ll cover the cost of shipping! How cool is that!
Interested in an issue between 2016-2019? Contact us at our email below.