Toward the end of her high school experience, Plan II freshman Margaret Siu was struck with an idea: to create a collegiate-level literary magazine. 

By the end of this semester, Siu said she hopes her magazine, called Apricity, will be ready to submit their first print edition to Columbia Scholastic Press Association for a Crown Award, which recognizes superior student media.

“I noticed that UT had not had a Crown Award for competitive magazine in quite a long time,” Siu said. “The last Crown was won in the late eighties.” 

Siu cites the Columbia Press Association Crown Awards as vital to growing small publications’ readership.

“The Press Association is more focused on content,” Siu said. “Most publications would like to win, especially when they’re trying to get off the ground.”

Though the magazine’s chief aim is competition, Siu hopes its presence on campus will be helpful to creative students seeking alternative outlets of publication. 

“I wanted to give students another platform to express themselves and to promote their voices,” Siu said. “Especially in this generation, we’re filled with multiple kinds of voices. We’re the next leadership of our country.”

The magazine publishes literary work, but it also utilizes its website to publish videos of performances and music. 

“It’s a multimedia literary magazine, so we don’t just focus on poetry or prose,” said Apricity associate editor Madeline Richter-Atkinson, Plan II freshman. “We combine those elements and added music and performing arts.”

Apricity is currently in the process of trying to become a Plan II-affiliated publication. This means they would be eligible for funding reserved for scholastic projects in the honors program. 

“The Plan II community has a history of sponsoring projects like this one. They’re a very ambitious group of people who have the push for this,” said Apricity Web Editor Sahib Chandnani, computer science and Plan II freshman.

Siu hopes to establish Apricity as a non-profit and donate all the proceeds to charity. She says this development may not happen for a while. 

“If we exceed our minimum budget, we want to set aside some of the monetary aspect for philanthropic purposes,” Siu said. “We want to look at some education-focused charities, but we’re still soul searching.”

Apricity is currently taking submissions on a rolling basis and encourages students of all majors to submit their work through the magazine’s website.