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Prairie Wind

About Prairie Wind

The Prairie Wind is a diverse collection of poetry, artwork, photography, and music from the many members of the Highland community. It is produced annually by students and staff in the Humanities and Fine Arts departments at Highland Community College. Published since 1992, each issue is created by an editorial staff composed of students and volunteer community members who are guided by a team of faculty advisors.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions of poetry, short prose, visual art, and music are welcome from Highland Community College students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

All submissions are reviewed for possible publication by an editorial board composed of HCC students and volunteer community members. The editorial board is guided by a team of faculty advisors. The views expressed in the publication do not necessarily reflect the views of Highland Community College or its employees.

Submissions are accepted electronically only. Submit works here.

There is a limit of five pieces per issue for each submitter.

Poetry and short prose

Written submissions should be uploaded as Word documents and should be in Times New Roman 12 pt. font, single-spaced, title in italics, author’s name in bold underneath

For questions about written submissions please contact Tracy Mays.

Visual Art

Visual Art submissions should be uploaded using the following specifics. 

  • Image format: JPG. JPEG, or PNG (Please do not save as PCX, BMP, or GIF.)
  • If scanning, scan in “True Color” or “RGB Color” or “Millions of Colors” and capture at 300 PPI.
  • Pixel dimensions of your digital image should be at least 1500px on the longest dimension
  • If submitting photography shot with digital camera, the camera should capture at least 7 megapixels.

If the uploaded imagery is not clear, it will be rejected due to inferior quality for printing.

For questions about Visual Art submissions please contact Robert Apolloni or Alex Jansen.

Music

While all styles of music are welcome, in general the performances & composition must be an original work and not published elsewhere, have a high-quality recording, and the entire work (including the recording, music, and lyrics [if any]) must be the sole property of the applicant, or in the public domain. For written music submissions, engraved scores (via notation software) are preferred to high-quality handwritten manuscripts, but as long as the score is legible and conforms to notational norms, it should be fine. For music that is not notated, a lead-sheet style submission with chords and lyrics is fine, too. Purely electronic music should submit a midi file or preferably a MusicXML file along with the completed recording.

Music submissions are coordinated by Randy Haldeman, Music Instructor. For questions about Music submissions please contact Dr. Haldeman.

Issues

2020

Cover of the 2020 issue showing a pencil sketch of a tiger's face.

The 2020 Prairie Wind is now available for pick up at the Clarence Mitchell Library, J. Rosemary Shockey Bookstore, and Fine Arts Office (F-59).

2019 Musical Selections

The Prairie Wind 2019 Issue cover with an abstract red painting.

2018 Musical Selections

The Prairie Wind 2018 Cover shows a an image of sunglasses reflecting sunlight through the slats of blinds, edged in a flower vine.