VHS’ best writers and artists compete for Banner Bold prizes
Throughout the school year, VHS students have a chance to submit their own literature, art or photography to VHS’ Banner Bold literary magazine. Banner Bold’s literary magazine is a magazine created, edited and produced by VHS’ Creative Writing students. Banner Bold is accepting submissions of all genres including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art and photography due by March 4. Competitors who enter can win the grand prize of $300, second place prize of $150 or third place prize of $75.
There is a different theme that Banner Bold encourages competitors to follow every year. This year’s theme is “The Things You Don’t See.” This means expressing and/or exploring a non-dominant narrative or unique creative work instead of a dominant one. However, competitors are not required to model their work off of this theme.
Banner Bold also supplies competitors with prompts to inspire their work. Some of the prompts include: “describe your favorite space to be in,” “write about your concept of personal space” and “write about your experience[s] and outlooks on solitude.” There are a few rules that competitors must follow in order for their work to get put in the magazine. These rules include: plagiarism is strictly prohibited, adult content may be admitted within reason (at the discretion of the editing team) and content/’trigger’ warnings will be used for this type of content, however, students are required to report any suspected violence that has been done to someone, whether it be himself or other individuals.
The editors and advisor, Greg Raney, of Banner Bold are also required to report any suspected violence that has been done or will be done to other individuals, and any suspected future suicide attempts.
As far as judging which submissions win prizes, the editors look at four factors. Raney, faculty advisor to Banner Bold, said, “One, content and Ideas: originality, engaging, and thought-provoking, are [these] ideas presented? Two, structure and organization: Has the writer or artist thought carefully about the best way to arrange their ideas? Does it flow? Three, style: Is the piece unique? Does it show an original voice and personality? Or does it sound like a lot of other pieces out there? Finally, [fourth is] conventions: How correct is it on the page? We’re not responsible for editing or fixing mistakes, so if someone submits a piece with a lot of errors, especially those that interfere with understanding, that may impact the judging.”
Raney also shared words of advice for those planning to submit art for Banner Bold. He said, “In a lot of ways, we look for the same things. We want to see original, unique, and thought-provoking pieces of art and photography. We still try to evaluate ideas and think about what the artist is trying to capture or convey through their art. While paintings and photos don’t use paragraphs, they still can use composition to arrange details within the frame. Again, we are suckers for originality. We can only accept and publish so many pictures of a sunset.”
Banner Bold Editor-in-Chief Freyja Palsdottir ‘25 said, “Well, I am most looking forward to seeing submissions for the ‘The Things You Don’t See‘ prompt because that is the theme for this year, but I am also anticipating to edit/judge submissions of any prompt.”
