About Zephyrus and the Selection Process

About Zephyrus
Zephyrus has been publishing student poetry, essays, short stories, and art work for over 40 years.  Begun by a group of students in the 1955-56 school year as Voices , the publication became known as Zephyrus in the late 60s.  

Zephyrus is a publication committed to publishing work by Western students, not restricted to the English Department.  Its purpose, in addition to providing a showcase for Western's talent, is to give all Western students an opportunity to try the publishing world before going completely professional by providing an experience comparable to the actual publishing industry.  Zephyrus has been publishing about 10% of submissions in recent years, which is a favorable rate compared to paying markets.  One benefit of a student publication is that it provides a forum free of professional competition, offering new writers a chance at experience they might not otherwise have available to them.

Dr. David LeNoir, the present faculty advisor for Zephyrus described the competition for the 1998 publication as fierce.  The pieces selected received consistently high marks from all of the students on the review board, and many of the pieces not selected were of high quality.  Although Dr. LeNoir dislikes turning down any writing for publication, the high quality of submissions for the 1998 publication is an indication of the caliber of student work at Western.  When Dr. LeNoir mails letters indicating which authors were selected for publication, he encourages those who were not selected to continue writing and submitting.

A Explanation of the Selection Process
When each piece is submitted to Zephyrus , Dr. LeNoir codes the work with a number and records the number on the piece and on the cover sheet that lists the author's name and the title of the piece.  He then removes the cover sheets and files them.  The pieces are then ordered randomly so that writers do not have multiple works in the review list consecutively (unless they are companion pieces) and to help keep the author anonymous.

The selection process is not only completely anonymous--if any reviewer recognizes someone's writing they must not review it--but it is also entirely student determined.  The review board is made up of a volunteer student panel that reads all of the pieces and votes on which they like for publication.  Dr. LeNoir then collates the student reviewers' responses and uses those responses to determine which pieces will be published.  The numbers assigned to the pieces are then traced back to the corresponding cover sheet and the writers are contacted.

Awards for Writing and Artwork
Awards are given to the outstanding writing and artwork published in the Zephyrus; there are four awards for writing and one for art.  Of the four writing awards, one is sponsored by the English Department, the Wanda Gatlin Essay Award given to the outstanding essay.  The other three awards are the Geoffrey McClvey Memorial Award, named for the son of a former English Department professor, and typically awarded to poetry.  Two local literary clubs also sponsor awards: The Browning Literary Club Poetry Award and the Ladies Literary Club Fiction Award.  These awards are selected on the basis of comments from the Creative Writing staff at Western.  Any piece accepted for publication in Zephyrus is eligible for consideration for awards, and in addition to the recognition of receiving the honor, each carries a modest monetary award.  The Zephyrus Art Award is selected by the student review board and is alternately awarded by the English Department and the Art Department.