By Matt Hall
Eastern New Mexico University sits in the High Plains region and once was the home of the “Dean of Science Fiction,” Jack Williamson.
Those two unique aspects of ENMU inspired the editors of El Portal, ENMU’s literature and arts journal. El Portal currently is accepting submissions exploring and challenging the ideas of the Wild West and Outer Space. It also is interested in media that crosses the boundaries of genre, time, and space.
Editor-in-chief Stefan Kiesbye, an assistant professor of English, and Editor Alexandra Itzi, a first-year English graduate student, wanted to combine the themes of the Wild West and Outer Space to combine the “spirit” of Jack Williamson and the Southwest.
Itzi said that she and Kiesbye really want to encourage people to play around with this semester’s theme—maybe even combining the Southwest and Outer Space in one entry.
“I really wanted to see if we could encourage people to write in that vein and sort of explore that genre a little bit more,” she said.
El Portal is a biannual literary magazine publishing fiction, nonfiction, essays, poetry, and artwork such as photography.
El Portal and the El Portal awards are funded by a grant from the Jack Williamson Trust. The late Dr. Williamson was a science fiction master, author, and ENMU professor emeritus of English. He served as the faculty sponsor of El Portal while he taught at ENMU.
Previously, only students were allowed to submit their work to El Portal, but that changed last semester when submissions were opened worldwide.
Kiesbye said submissions are welcome from anyone who can write in English, and there are different cash prizes for the best submissions. However, only students are eligible to receive the cash prize.
The submission deadline is October 31.
Submissions can be given to Kiesbye or Itzi in the English Department, can be submitted via email at El.Portal@enmu.edu, or can be submitted through the journal’s Web site at ElPortalJournal.com.