The Minor Bird Magazine Wants Your Words
The 2023 edition of the Minor Bird literary magazine sits on a table at the Jennie King Mellon Library. (Mick Stinelli)
Submissions opened this week for the Minor Bird, Chatham University’s undergraduate literary magazine. Dirk Wynn ’24, the new poetry editor, remembers the first piece of writing he submitted: “Ship Sculpture,” a poem that ran in the 2021 issue.
Wynn hasn’t done a lot of creative writing in his classes at Chatham; since he majors in English, most of his projects are focused on literary analysis. But the Minor Bird gave him a chance not only to write, but to be published—something he knew he wasn’t able to do on his own.
“It’s just really fulfilling, I think, to just get stuff out there,” he said.
He added: “If I needed to have a resume or portfolio, I could say I was published in something.”
The Minor Bird is one of the oldest active student organizations at Chatham; it was first published in 1929. Its pages are filled with Chatham students’ poetry, prose, and artwork. Plus, the editorial board is made up entirely of students.
Raewyn Kraybill ’25, the editor in chief of the Minor Bird’s upcoming 2024 edition, first joined the literary magazine as a shadow, or apprentice, to the poetry editor.
It was there that Kraybill, who uses the singular “they” pronoun, was able to see how the editorial board selects which submissions will make it into the magazine.
“We get these packets of all of the poetry that’s been submitted before it’s accepted,” Kraybill, who majors in creative writing, said. They saw how poems were edited by the Minor Bird staff, and they got a chance to do some edits before taking over the job the following year. “Once I was the poetry editor, I really got into it. It all excites me. ... I want so many students to submit stuff.”
With submissions now open to all Chatham undergraduates—you don’t have to be in the English or creative writing programs to submit – Kraybill and Wynn said they were waiting eagerly to see what enters their inbox before they publish in spring.
“I just want an abundance of work and things to look at,” Kraybill said. “I know we have some really talented people here.”
For students majoring in creative writing, or for anyone with a penchant for poetry, prose, or art, the Minor Bird is a great first place to get published. Wynn and Kraybill both said they want to help foster people’s creativity and help them build their portfolios.
“It’s really good to be able to look at what the people around me are writing,” Wynn said. “I’m not looking at a famous author from the ’60s, and I’m not looking at an author that’s making hundreds of thousands of dollars at Barnes & Noble right now ... I’m looking at what my peers are doing.”
A theme for the upcoming issue hasn’t been selected (the editors may not decide on a strict “theme” at all, Kraybill said, to avoid limiting the scope of submissions), but Kraybill floated the idea of injecting an extra bit of continuity into the cover design.
“This isn’t necessarily what’s going to happen, but last year on the cover, we had a picture of the bird – there’s always a bird, usually – the bird was being staked. It was dead,” they said. “I think it would be fun to either commission someone or get someone who submits artwork like this to draw the bird being resurrected in some way.”
The Minor Bird is currently a print-only magazine, and it will be distributed in the spring. Some previous issues are available online on the legacy Minor Bird blog site and through the Internet Archive, thanks to the Jennie King Mellon Library, which houses past issues of the journal.
To submit to the Minor Bird, email your work to the editors via Google Doc.
Mick Stinelli is a writer and digital content strategist at Chatham University. His work has previously appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 90.5 WESA, and WYEP.org.