Trinity’s Student-Run Literary Magazine The Vernacular Uplifts Creative Voices

Hannah Smith ’26

Arts and Entertainment Editor

The Vernacular is the literary magazine at Trinity College, run entirely by students for students. Their goal is to foster a writing community at Trinity and to provide students with an opportunity to share their creative work with an audience. It is a place for creative people to flourish and work their creative muscles amongst like minded people in ways that aren’t necessarily easy to find in other places on campus. Students are invited to submit to the following categories: poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction, academic nonfiction, plays and screenplays. There are two issues of the magazine each year, one published at the end of the fall semester and another published at the end of the spring.

The Tripod spoke to four of the current editors in chief of The Vernacular: Maggie Ondrey ’25, Reese San Diego ’25, Juan Garcia ’25 and Paulina Campanella ’27. They discussed the magazine, their experiences and what they want people to know about their publication. The submissions process begins by sending your work to The Vernacular’s email. From there, a panel of blind readers go through each piece completely anonymously and a select few are chosen for publication. Every writer whose work is selected for The Vernacular is invited to a launch party to celebrate at the end of the semester. The launch party is an uplifting, supportive gathering filled with friends and faculty who are happy to welcome more students into the big and beautiful writing community on Trinity’s campus. At last year’s party, they quickly ran out of chairs for everyone to sit in because they weren’t expecting such an influx of interest and support, but were more than happy to see all the love they were getting.

Throughout this semester, The Vernacular team ran a write-in event and an open mic event. The write-in took place from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. in the Writing Center, where people came and went to write in groups with both friends and new faces, in a room filled with people encouraging one another to create. San Diego, one of the editors in chief, said, “Before the Vernacular, there’s been a lack of a writing community on campus. There aren’t a lot of clubs… Creative writing was kind of underrepresented on campus. It’s fun because there were a lot of familiar faces at the write-in… It’s a face space where all the writers gather, similar to the open mic night.” The open mic night gave writers the opportunity to share their work before the submission deadline, allowing them to read their work aloud. San Diego said that the open mic night “encourages people to be brave. It’s vulnerable to get up and share your writing, but I think, once people see each other get up, it encourages other people to go.” If you can read your personal work to a room full of people, you can do anything.

I asked the group what they wanted to say to people who might be considering sending in their work to The Vernacular to be considered for publication. Ondrey said, “It takes a lot to put your work out there. It’s a very vulnerable — it’s an act of bravery, it’s really scary… The idea of there being a yes or no aspect is really scary… It’s very human, but there’s something so satisfying about something you worked so hard on being solidified into existence.” Ondrey emphasized that the launch party is as much a celebration of the art as much as it is about celebrating the fact that everyone did something really scary and made it out on the other side.

For The Vernacular magazines of the future, the current E-board is emphasizing consistency and sustainability. Since most of them are graduating at the end of next semester, they’re working hard to keep interest in The Vernacular high so that it survives for future generations of Trinity students. Garcia talked about “having a structure that future classes can follow quite easily,” but the group feels confident in leaving it in the hands of the next generation, including younger students involved in the magazine right now, like the fourth editor in chief, Campanella, who plans to continue her work with The Vernacular for the remainder of her time at Trinity.

The Vernacular is focused on uplifting students’ voices. They read a lot of submissions about activism and social justice. Global issues have become especially important in recent issues, including last fall’s magazine. Ondrey said, “We sold bookmarks at our launch party last year and did readings from Palestinian poets and donated to Save the Children in Palestine… What we’re about isn’t just protecting our voices as students, but protecting other people’s voices too.”

It may be too late to submit your work for the fall issue, but every Trinity student is more than welcome to submit their writing for the spring addition! Keep an eye out for all the amazing work published in The Vernacular this December, and don’t forget to take one of the free copies you find around campus.