The Process: Enlightened

As a writer or photographer, you submit your work to the Pulse’s annual Hal Grutzmacher Writers’ Exposé and Photography Jubilee, hoping to be published, but do you know what happens to your work once it is submitted?

Only one set of eyes sees whom the writer or photographer is until after the judging process is completed – that’s mine. Each author and photographer is given an artist number and each piece of work is given a genre number. There are absolutely no identifying factors on each piece of work – hence the term blind submission process.

Poetry, fiction, and nonfiction entries are sent to our pre-screening committee, which this year consisted of Marge Grutzmacher, Steve Grutzmacher, Nik Garvoille, Sally Slattery, and Allison Vroman. These superhuman literary critics read through 40 fiction pieces, 20 nonfiction pieces, and 120 poems in three days. The group convened over pizza and discussed which submissions would be sent to our esteemed judges. All said, 10 fiction and 10 nonfiction pieces were sent to judge Alex Kuo and 26 poems were sent to judge Marilyn Taylor.

Once I sent out the packages to the judges containing blind submissions to be judged, the contest was completely in the judges’ hands – they are responsible for what you read in this lit issue.

The photo submissions followed a slightly different path. Just like the writing submissions, all identifying factors were taken off, each photographer was given an artist number and each photo was given a genre number.

The photography judges gathered around the Pulse’s conference table and thumbed through over 200 photographs, first making the initial cut and weeding out around 100 submissions, then another cut – eliminating another 50 submissions, and finally, the remaining submissions were spread out on the table and examined one by one. The judges discussed the pros and cons of each photo until they ended up with 18 photos to be declared the best. Then they racked their brains trying to rank the submissions and finally, the decisions were made.

The process is pretty simple, but to someone unfamiliar to what happens behind the scenes of a literary contest, enlightening.