UTRGV’s Gallery magazine placed in several categories in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s 37th Golden Circle Awards earlier this month.
Four UTRGV student submissions through the magazine were selected as the winners.
The CSPA awards Golden Circles to “recognize superior work by student journalists” and includes 164 different categories for students to enter for.
Gallery publishes annually and showcases the talent and creativity of different UTRGV students. The Gallery staff is made up of students taking ENGL-3350 class.
The four UTRGV winners are as follows:
–Rebekah Gomez, third place in Photography for “Hatman in Taxco”;
— Myriah Acosta, certificate of merit in Photography for “Blue Dream”;
–Lourdes Garcia and Jacob Villanueva, first place in Experimental Fiction for “Magical Realism”; and
–Garcia and Villanueva, second place in the Humor Category for “Magical Realism.”
English senior Villanueva recalls the emotions that he and Garcia had when they found out about their victory.
“I was pretty happy and proud, not just for me but for the school…There’s a lot of people who have a lot of talent here in this school,” he said. “Since we’re a smaller school and we tend to be far away from any other major city, sometimes we get overlooked. I’m glad I was able to do a little bit of my part in helping bring light to our school.”
Each creator has their own reasons for dabbling in their creative endeavors.
Gomez explains in the contributor’s notes in the latest Gallery issue that she uses photography to explore and appreciate the world around her. She wants her photographs to invoke feelings of originality and tell unified stories.
Faculty advisor for Gallery and Creative Writing Associate Professor Britt Haraway explains the importance that an outlet, such as the magazine, plays to creators at UTRGV.
“We serve the artistic and literary communities here… A magazine like Gallery…It’s a great first step for a lot of student artists and writers,” Haraway said. “It also is celebrating that… For literary and the art community, Gallery can be a great way to show what we’re doing, kinda show off.”
According to the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s (CSPA) website, it is an international student press organization founded in 1925 at Columbia University in New York City.
To learn more about Gallery or for submission, visit gallery.submittable.com/submit.
For Vaquero News, I’m Rodolfo Alvarado.
