The Oakwood, a  literature and arts magazine produced by South Dakota State University  students and faculty, is currently accepting submissions for its upcoming issue debuting in late April.

Founded in 1975, The Oakwood is produced annually, edited by students supervised by a faculty advisor. Working on the magazine is done through a class where students are responsible for editing and designing the magazine.

The class doesn’t meet regularly like most do. The responsibility to meet, as well as what to do, is up to the students.

“We’re guided, but we’re mostly expected to monitor ourselves,” editor Daniel Spangler said.

The course mostly involves independent work and requires students to step up to being in charge and making decisions on their own.

“It feels more like a job than a class,” editor Greg Martinez said. “I feel like I’m getting experience.”

The students continue to work outside of their meetings, completing tasks like deciding which submissions to vote for and discussing where to put posters.

Outside of editing and designing, the editors are also responsible for outreach. The magazine not only accepts submissions from SDSU students but also from alumni and people in the Northern Great Plains region, which contains South Dakota and the states immediately surrounding it.

“We get a fairly even split on what is coming from students versus what is coming from off-campus,” current faculty advisor Steven Wingate said.

The editors have been getting the word out on social media, along with posters, email chains and more.

“We’re not going to fly a banner on a plane,” Spangler said, “but we’re going to try everything else.”

Wingate has prioritized making Oakwood a regional magazine rather than only containing SDSU student submissions for the past few years.

“It took a while to get to the point where we wanted to start expanding,” Wingate said. “We wanted the magazine to have a look and feel and identity.”

Once the magazine had an established identity, it became a goal to draw in writers from the region as a whole. The magazine accepts different types of submissions, including a wide array of visual media, poetry, prose, short stories and more. They will continue to accept submissions until the Feb. 14 deadline, and the editors encourage submissions from anybody who is interested.

“Even though we’ve already gotten a lot of submissions, feel free to submit,” Martinez said. “There’s no downside to submitting, and there is plenty of time.”

Once all submissions are in and the layout is decided on, there will be a full launch at the Briggs Library April 23. The magazine will be available for free in several locations around the SDSU campus.

Information about the magazine and submissions can be found at the Oakwood website. A PDF version of several past editions of the magazine can also be found and read on the website.