Byzantium

06/11/2021

While we are eagerly anticipating the arrival of our printed journals in the summer we wanted to share with you the online publication!

Byzantium 31:

Byzantium is Cal Poly's award-winning annual literary journal produced entirely by undergraduate students. The journal’s stories and poems are chosen during annual open call for submissions. All work accepted for publication in the journal is automatically considered in Cal Poly's longstanding ann...

05/25/2021

We are so proud to announce the winners of Byzantium's first art contest! We can't wait fo you all to see them in color soon!

05/25/2021

We are so proud to announce the winners of this year's Alfred Landwehr Fiction Writing Contest!! We are so proud of these stories and the authors and can't wait for you all to read them!

05/25/2021

We are proud to announce the winners of this year's Kevin Clark Poetry Writing Contest!! We are so proud of these poems and their authors and we are very excited for you all to read them soon!

03/12/2021

Calling all artists!!! For the first time ever Byzantium will be featuring student artwork! We are looking for talented student artists regardless of grade or major to submit their artwork. Top artists will win the first ever Byzantium art contest and win prizes!!!

02/22/2021

We are thrilled to announce our judge for this year's Kevin Clark poetry writing contest Mag Gabbert!
Mag Gabbert holds a PhD in creative writing from Texas Tech University and an MFA from The University of California at Riverside. Her essays and poems can be found in 32 Poems, Pleiades, The Rumpus, Thrush, The Massachusetts Review, Waxwing, The Pinch, and many other journals. Mag is the author of Minml Poems, a chapbook of visual poetry and nonfiction (Cooper Dillon Books, 2020). She has received poetry fellowships from Idyllwild Arts and Poetry at Round Top. Mag teaches creative writing at Southern Methodist University and serves as the interviews editor for Underblong Journal. For more information, please visit maggabbert.com.

02/22/2021

We are thrilled to announce our judge for this year's Al Landwehr fiction writing contest Akil Kumarasamy!
Akil Kumarasamy is a writer from New Jersey and the author of the story collection, Half Gods, published by FSG in 2018, which was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was the recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize, Story Prize Spotlight Award and a finalist for the PEN/Robert Bingham Prize. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, American Short Fiction, Boston Review, among others. She has received fellowships from the University of East Anglia, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Yaddo, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She is an Assistant Professor at the Rutgers-Newark MFA program and her debut novel is forthcoming with FSG.

12/01/2020

On this Giving Tuesday December 1st please consider donating to help support the 31st edition of Byzantium. We know times are challenging but even a donation of $10 goes a long way to help us! This project means the world to us and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support and donations!
- Byzantium Editorial Team

Help Cal Poly San Luis Obispo raise $1,000 for the project: Support Byzantium, Cal Poly’s Literary Journal!. Your gift will make a difference!

12/01/2020

All majors. All years. All anonymous

11/25/2020

Support Byzantium!! The 31st edition of Byzantium has created a crowd funding campaign to help raise money - socially distanced - for the journal this year. We are trying to print the journal in color this year and without your support this will not be possible. The campaign is currently live and ends December 19th!!! So please donate today!
Click this link to go directly to our donation page:
https://bit.ly/3nW9yLN

11/25/2020

Meet Allison, our art director! Allison is a fourth year Art and Design major with a concentration in graphic design. Her favorite activities include playing billiards, travelling to new places, learning new skills, and reading. Her favorite graphic designers are Joshua Smith (aka Hydro74), Erik Spiekermann, Stefan Sagmeister, and Paula Scher.

11/25/2020

Meet Alex, our poetry editor! Alex is a fourth year English major and Psychology minor. His hobbies are quite eclectic, as he enjoys reading/writing fiction and nonfiction alike, lifting weights, and buying and selling Magic: The Gathering cards (MTG) for profit. To match these hobbies, his favorite poet is Gerard Manley Hopkins, his favorite author is Thomas Sowell, and his favorite bodybuilder is Ronnie Coleman, “Yeah Buddy!” He doesn’t expect many people to know about MTG but if you get into a Zoom call with him, you’ll see artwork from the cards hung on his walls. He looks forward to reading the insightful and high-quality poems you submit!