The Process
Before each meeting, the Spires Literary Editor and Art Editor gather all submissions sent to spiresmagazine@gmail.com and add them to a spreadsheet that charts each submission’s title, its author or artist, and that individual’s year of graduation. The editors then assign a number to be paired with each submission. The spreadsheet linking each author and artist to their work is never shared with the magazine’s staff.
When members of the Spires staff view new submissions, they find that each submission is paired with a number and a title, but not with the name of its author or artist. Thus, until or unless a piece is accepted into the magazine, only one person on the staff (the literary or art editor) sees an author or artist’s name connected to their work.
The Purpose
The purpose of this system is to ensure that no bias enters the process of submission review. Submissions are reviewed anonymously both for the benefit of the writer or artist and for the benefit of the group members. Our system ensures that submissions will be evaluated exclusively on their literary and artistic merit. In addition, this system guarantees that any non-fictional descriptions of an author’s experiences will not be connected to the author unless their piece is accepted into the magazine.
We also accept submissions from authors who prefer to have their work published anonymously – if this is the case, this must be noted in the original submission email.