Border Crossing
Founded in 2011, Border Crossing is an international online literary and arts journal published by the Lake Superior State University Creative Writing Program. As a “teaching journal,” we provide editing and publishing opportunities for undergraduate English and creative writing students prior to graduation. Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry submissions are considered by the faculty and students on our editorial board.
Our first six issues have featured talented Canadian, American, and Mexican writers and artists whose work has appeared in many widely-read publications, including the Best American series and W.W. Norton and Houghton Mifflin anthologies, as well as nationally recognized magazines like The Atlantic, Glimmer Train, Playboy, Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Decanto Magazine in England, and The Canadian Federation of Poetry.
On an annual basis, faculty and students on our editorial board nominate extraordinary pieces for inclusion in The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. We also send fiction to the O. Henry Prize Anthology, where we have been listed alongside other publications with a serious commitment to short fiction. Beginning with volume 5, our first online edition, we have been nominating work for the storySouth Million Writers Award and the Best of the Net Anthology series. Two stories from vol. 5 made the Million Writers shortlist, one of which was named a finalist, and one of our poems from the same issue was featured in Best of the Net.
Publishing Internships
Border Crossing offers credit-bearing publishing internships in fiction and poetry for undergraduate creative writing students at Lake State. This is a great opportunity to become familiar with the editing process and learn the best practices for submitting your own writing to journals, contests, agents, and/or publishers. Once you have earned credit in ENGL 221 and ENGL 223, you can apply for one of our internships. Please note that you must perform satisfactorily during the fall journals internship in a genre in order to progress to the editing internship in that genre for the spring, and the internship series must be taken in sequence. If you complete the sequence, you will be listed on the masthead as an assistant editor in your genre and you will write, edit, and publish a book review in the journal, all of which looks great on your resume!
Fiction Internships
- ENGL 399 Internship in Fiction Journals (1, FALL)
- ENGL 399 Internship in Fiction Editing (2, SPRING)
Nonfiction Internships
- ENGL 399 Internship in Nonfiction Journals (1, FALL)
- ENGL 399 Internship in Nonfiction Editing (2, SPRING)
Poetry Internships
- ENGL 399 Internship in Poetry Journals (1, FALL)
- ENGL 399 Internship in Poetry Editing (2, SPRING)
Apply to Mary McMyne for the fiction or nonfiction internship series and Julie Barbour for the poetry series.
Co-Editors
Julie Brooks Barbour
Mary McMyne
Interns and Readers
2019
Fiction: Amy Lehigh
Poetry: Elizabeth “Lizziegh” Enos
2018
Fiction: Matthew Espinosa, Wayne Thompson
Poetry: Taylor Worsham
Story Contest Coordinator: Genevieve Smith
2017
Fiction: Genevieve Smith
Nonfiction: Clay Winowiecki
Story Contest Readers: Katelynn Bonnee, Bri Boyer, Neal Davis, Devin Hartman, Daniel Motz, Johnathon Preville, Genevieve Smith, Clay Winowiecki
2016
Fiction: Katherine Del Rose, Daisy Fentiman
Nonfiction: Ana Robbins
Poetry Reader: Charlotte Mazurek
2015
Fiction: Audrey Hutchison, Jana Tahtinen
Fiction Readers: Amanda DeForest, Daisy Fentiman, Robert Gallinger, Cornelia Hobbs, Dawnlyn Holman, Michael Magaha
Poetry Reader: Maura MacDonald
2014
Fiction: Stephen Keller
Poetry: Meredith Cleary
2013
Fiction: John Keller, Janessa Stutz
Poetry: Laura Gamble, Adam Uhrig
2012
Fiction: Patrick Brooks, Eric Cairns
Poetry: Jane Buckanaga Picotte, Laura Gamble
Reader: Aaron Fader
What is a Border Crossing Internship?
Katherine Del Rose, 2015-2016 assistant fiction editor, describes her yearlong internship with the journal as follows:
Katherine Del Rose, 2016 Assistant Fiction Editor
“When I first started this internship with Border Crossing in the fall, I had no idea how much work it would be. Reading ten stories a week, analyzing their use of craft, and determining if they were publishable was difficult. That being said, this course was by far my favorite course all year. I have learned so much about the work that goes into literary journals and publishing that I look forward to using one day in my career. One thing that really surprised me was the variety of stories we receive, and how quickly I would need to form an opinion. Before this internship, if I read a piece of fiction that I didn’t like, I would be content to dislike it and not understand why. Now, I can look deeper into a piece and see the mechanics that make it function… Apart from reading through stories and trying to assess different devices in use, I also made edits to the pieces that came close.
This internship has taught me a lot about editing, and it makes me very eager to get out into the real world. My understanding and appreciation of fiction has changed greatly. I had never really looked closely at what made a piece of fiction work until this course, and I think that it will really help me better form my own stories… This internship has been so much fun, and I’ve really enjoyed the relationships I’ve formed and the things I’ve learned. I would strongly recommend this course to anyone who is interested in publishing or editing work as a career.”
Read the book review Katherine wrote as part of her internship experience.
