UTAH TECH UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWS SOURCE | February 16, 2025

Utah Tech’s very own literary magazine—Southern Quill—opens doors for writers, students

The Southern Quill, Utah Tech’s student-run liberal arts magazine, was founded in 1951 and has been active for more than 50 years. The annual publication began with submissions from local writers, students, faculty and staff. Since then, it has expanded to include submissions from neighboring states. Cora Mark | Sun News Daily

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For 74 years, the Southern Quill, Utah Tech University’s very own literary magazine, has been a vessel to help students and other writers publish their work.

The magazine has published over 60 issues since its birth in 1951, and each one is archived digitally and physically cataloged by the Utah Tech library. Most of the original covers from each magazine are accessible through these resources as well. 

Originally, the magazine team gathered submissions from university students, staff, faculty and other members of the community. Cindy King, an associate professor of English, said they expanded submissions to the rest of Utah and Las Vegas when she took over as associate adviser in 2016. The number of states eligible for submission only grew from there.

“In 2020, for the 70th anniversary, we opened up the journal submissions to six additional states, like Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico… states surrounding us,” King said. “In the year that followed, we opened it up to writers and artists anywhere in the United States.”

Alongside that, Southern Quill also applied for and received an ISSN, which means that it has been officially registered with the Library of Congress.

“It means that, in the eyes of the audience, we’re a little bit more legitimate,” King said. “It adds a lot of credibility to the journal.”

Students who work on the magazine take a class held in the spring semester. Currently, a team of six students is working to prepare the next edition. 

The team aims to finish the magazine by the end of the spring semester. The number of submissions varies, and King said they received over 600 submissions in 2024.

Stevie Lytle, a junior creative writing major from St. George, is currently the managing editor. Part of his job is to assign submissions to the other editors as well as help advertise when the journal is open for submissions. 

“Anything we want to publish will have at least two eyes on [it],” Lytle said. “Once our submissions close, which is March 14, that’s when we get serious about choosing what we want to publish.”

In total, there are four editors in charge of each genre the magazine publishes including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and visual arts. 

“I think it really does benefit students,” Lytle said. “It gives us a really good opportunity to get published. Something that I’m proud of is that we are entirely student-run. No staff has any say in what we choose to publish. That is all on us.” 

Another crucial member of the team is Analee Hall, a junior graphic design major from Boise, Idaho. This semester marks her second year on staff as the design and layout specialist. 

“I think that it’s just really cool to have a place where you can submit work that you’ve done in class here and then see it in a physical journal,” Hall said. “It’s not very well known that it’s out there, so we’re really trying to shout it out from the rooftops.”

The Southern Quill used to have prizes for every genre, but their only contest is called the Dean’s Prize for Visual Arts and is chosen by the magazine staff. Jeff Jarvis, the dean of the College of the Arts, donates a $300 prize that is awarded to the chosen artist. King said that at times, they use the work that wins the contest as the cover art for the magazine.

Submissions are still open for the 2025 edition of the magazine and can be found here. They close on March 14. There is no submission fee and all are welcome to submit their work.