The deadline for the student run annual interdisciplinary journal, Metaphor, closed Jan. 21 with a result of over 140 works. The 2018 publication will be ready to distribute March 28 with only students behind all the copy editing.

Brysen Bodily, the editor-in-chief, who has been working with Metaphor since early 2016, said just over sixty percent of these submissions will be accepted into the XXXVII volume of the journal.

Entries are split into the submission sections fiction, non-fiction, poetry, visual arts, film and music.

The pieces are then read and scored on a rubric by each member of the correlating division before it becomes a discussion on which ones should be kept.

Bodily said these sections, however, are not represented equally in the publication.

“We are starting to move away from academic pieces,” Bodily said.

Non-fiction, or academic, pieces only make up about 15 pages of Metaphor, while fiction and poetry make up more than two-thirds of the entire finished product.

This organization has a faculty advisor, Ryan Ridge, who mostly handles the financial aspect of the journal.

Aside from this, it is organized and structured entirely by Weber State students, such as Anastasia Douglass, visual arts committee staff member, who explained she works alongside her team to look for authenticity, clarity, technique (control of the medium) and beauty when determining if an art piece matches qualifications of the rubric.

The rubrics are not public to the students, according to Bodily.

“Simply because I don’t want them trying to gear a piece towards what the rubric is looking for. I want them to produce their best work,” Bodily.

In past years, the staff used a general rating system. However, the staff felt it wasn’t accurate or fair to certain types of writing.

The rubrics for each section have been changed this year to more closely mold to the specific category the piece was submitted.

Douglass explained how being published is beneficial.

“Pieces in Metaphor are seen by the community and can alter the way they interpret your work,” she said.

Metaphor also hosts events like an open mic night, a flash fiction contest and a cover art contest.

Bodily encourages the students who have not submitted a piece to Metaphor to submit as many submissions as possible.

Bodily said, “I want to see a variety of students get published. I don’t want to see four students dominate the entire journal.”