Way back in the day, The Record started out as largely a literary magazine. Non-fiction commentary based on current events read alongside witty fictional stories reflecting on the times, all written by college students.

We’re bringing fiction back. Our news coverage won’t change, but we’re adding another column to our website: Curved.

Curved will encompass short fiction stories, satire, humor, cartoons and poetry. We’re looking for creative, thought-provoking writing or illustrations that have relevant thematic elements to topics people are talking about today. We want to view the world through your (or your character’s) lenses.

Currently, as a news organization, we focus on news, culture, sports and opinion stories. Literary short stories and illustrations have long been put to the side, which results in most of our content being written by journalism students. We are proud of our dedicated writers and the journalistic content we’re creating but we would like to expand, bringing other types of writing and majors into the mix. We are looking for writers from all corners of campus, with all kinds of writing styles, to contribute. As always, all majors are welcome.

Each story will be categorized under the Curved section on our website, clearly labeled Curved on social media and have our Curved logo, so there will be no mistaking it for non-fiction.

This decision was inspired, in part, by the talent that a few of us were seeing in our creative writing classes. We started to notice how many good writers are on this campus and how few of them we are reaching. We want to provide a campus-wide platform for their stories to be shared, alongside our news.

To be published, stories must be under 5,000 words, however, we can split long stories up into different installments. They must be free of grammatical errors.

Interested in being one of our first contributors? Submit your work to our editorial staff at [email protected], or stop by one of our weekly meetings, held every Tuesday at 12:15 in our 4th-floor office in the Student Union, room 114.