Cumberland University announced today that the NOVUS Literary and Arts Journal will print a collector’s commemorative edition with funds from the Dr. Bill McKee Academic Research and Creative Activities Grant this fall.
The CU NOVUS Literary and Arts Journal is a literary journal created and run by undergraduate students that publishes work each spring. The commemorative print edition will feature work selected for publication from over 200 submissions of poetry, fiction, memoir and art and will be distributed to local libraries, schools and bookstores.
“Receiving a Dr. Bill McKee Academic Research and Creative Activities Grant has been a real game-changer for the Novus Literary Arts Journal,” said Sandee Gertz, Assistant Professor of Creative and Imaginative Writing. “We have been able to greatly enhance our status and become a truly national journal with submissions from around the world.”
“The artists featured in our spring online journal and commemorative print edition in the fall are award-winning poets, writers, and artists with impressive publishing histories — to see our own CU students be featured alongside these individuals is very exciting, and we hope the quality and growth of our journal will serve to attract even more students to our Creative and Imaginative Writing program,” continued Gertz.
The online edition will also serve as the home to poet Anders Carlson-Wee’s work from his Norton-published book The Low Passions. The work of East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame member and 2019 CU Poet in Residence Jesse Graves will also be featured in both the online and print commemorative edition.
“I’m thrilled to see several poems from The Low Passions find an online home at Cumberland University and the NOVUS Literary Arts Journal,” said Anders Carlson-Wee. “I greatly enjoyed my visit to campus and was very impressed by the high quality of work of the student writing and the entire Creative and Imaginative Writing program. I have valued my continuing relationship with the university and hope to be back to celebrate with NOVUS in the fall.”
The McKee Academic Research Grants were awarded to 28 faculty-proposed research and creative activities projects. The grants were named in honor of Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Bill McKee, who has served CU for over 30 years.
Funding from this grant also enabled NOVUS to become part of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), which allows for world-wide submissions to the literary journal.
The live launch of the online spring edition of NOVUS will be held on May 6, 2021, at 12 p.m. in the Lawlor Room of the Vise Library.
For more information on NOVUS, visit https://novusliterary.com.
The views of the NOVUS Literary Arts Journal are its own and do not reflect the views of Cumberland University.