Contributor

English Society and S.A.C. was proud to welcome Michael Czyzniejewski at the Editing Q&A session at 7:30 p.m. in the Parliamentary room of the Plaster Student Union on Thursday, March 12th.

As the Editor-in-Chief of the Mid-American Review, Czyzniejewski was more than qualified to address the crowd of writers and several members of the English Department.

Through his vivacious nature, his words impacted students as he answered questions, from how he became a writer to what types of work the Mid-American Review accepts.

He talked about his own personal experiences and discussed the tactics that many universities use when trying to create a literary review.

He went further to explain the categories that some works are placed into when they are submitted.

“Ten percent of the work is really good,” he said. “Ten percent is really bad; like the person who prints on glitter paper, or the one who submits concrete poetry with the poem formed to look like a cat. And eighty percent is allotted to the competence submission section. These works are written by good writers. In essence they are a story, but the wow factor isn’t there.”

One of his greatest points of advice was to keep writing. A person won’t become stellar if they give up. Perseverance was the key in Czyzniejewski’s journey to publish, and he found success. His stories are scattered out in several reviews; The Cream City Review, The Bat City Review, American Literary Review, A Chicago Magazine and countless others.