The name Mountain Breeze might sound like the cool wind blowing down from a mountain, but it is actually a literary journal published here at BMC that anyone can submit to via a contest every fall for writing submissions. Any student, no matter their major, can submit a work to the Breeze. It publishes once a year in April and allows art submissions as well as written.
The class who edits the journal gives all writing and art submissions to a judge: a professional writer picked by the class’s teacher-to be classified into first, second, and third place based on genre, media or writing type. There is a cash award given to the first, second, and third place winners in each genre. This year, first place winners will each receive $100, while second place will get $75, and third will get $50. Each genre is listed as follows: creative-nonfiction, one-act plays, short stories, devotionals, artwork, and poetry. This year there will not be any essays in the book as there have been previously.
Dr. Fisher is the new teacher of the Mountain Breeze class, who took it over this year from Dr. Kerns’ previous direction. He says, “We offer three cash rewards in each genre as a way of motivating students to turn in their best writing and, if they don't think of themselves as creative writers, to move a little out of their comfort zone and try something new.” The last day anything can be submitted to the contest this semester is November 16.
Dr. Fisher says the rules for submissions allow for three poems but not exceeding 100 lines per poem. One-Act Plays, short stories, and creative-nonfictions, he says, must not exceed 5000 words and devotionals must not exceed 500 words. All submissions need to be double-spaced when submitted. Any or all genre categories can be submitted into at any one time by any student, according to Dr. Fisher.
The Mountain Breeze is a publication unit here at the college, but it is not just run by the BMC faculty. The staff consists of a teacher and students who send in the submissions for judging and edit the winning submissions for publication. Dr. Fisher says, “I would recommend that anyone who has an interest in literary writing and publication take the class, as well as any students who want to contribute to Blue Mountain's creative community!” The Mountain Breeze is a small class at the moment, but Abigail Hull, a student on the Breeze, encourages joining the class, saying, “I most definitely recommend being on Mountain Breeze! It has been so fun so far and we are able to have so many creative freedoms with how we format the book.” She says that she thinks of the Mountain Breeze as “a way to express oneself through their writing.”
Students can submit their works to the contest at scribblers@bmc.edu by November 16.
