The 2023 Gallimaufry earned two first place prizes including a national award, making it the 15th since 2012.

“It’s important to match artwork with the written word, so the journal has a natural ebb and flow as you read it,” Gallimaufry advisor Seth Pace said. “This can be quite challenging and it’s always a great sense of accomplishment when it’s put together and draws the reader through the journal.”

In more recent editions of the Gallimaufry has started including photography submissions. They are accepting poetry, art, photography, film work and music composition as well.

“I am going through all of the photography,” senior Aiden Seekins said. “I’m trying to decide what should go in and what shouldn’t go in. A lot of it is good, so it’s all figuring out what to put in and to keep it nice and compact.”

There is a lot of work to be gone through and the students work tirelessly to keep up the effort of making the newest journal better than the last.

“We end up with some really good work,” senior editor Caleb Irwin said. “We have a lot of talented writers in the room, we always get our work done.”

With all of the work being put into the Gallimaufry, the results are anxiously awaited.

“We don’t know the results until the next year so it’s kind of stressful,” Irwin said. “Leading up to it, we put a lot of work in this, and it’s really nice to get good results.”

Seekins claims that spending so much time together editing the journal makes their class grow closer together. It started as a natural production of the creative writing class in 2009.

“It’s pretty cool to be part of a team effort that all came together at one point,” Seekins said. “It was a lot of fun to kind of come together and to hear that we all won.”

The journal and its electronic submissions can pose a challenge in gathering everything before the deadline.

“The difficulty is always gathering all the electronic versions of the submissions,” Pace said.  “Many students send in submissions, but don’t include the electronic sources, which we need to build the journal.”

The spring semester for members of Gallimaufry and creative writing class find it to be quite hectic come time for submissions. Pace devotes his weekends to making sure everything is as it should be for submitting for judging.

“It’s like trying to herd wild warthogs across the swamp,” Pace said. “Each year is challenging and difficult.”

Work for the journal is endless and has been since Pace brought the creative writing class back to life after a “20-year slumber”. Every student has a job they must complete to contribute to the success.

“They are great students who are willing to put in the work to keep producing a fantastic journal,” Pace said. The 2024 Gallimaufry is called Epilogue. “One thing ends, another begins.”