Arrival Magazine gives entry-level experience to emerging writers   Arrival Magazine gives entry-level experience to emerging writers  
Co-managing editor of Arrival Magazine Ariesha Mais, 20, says student-led magazines are important for students to develop first-hand experience.  “They are important because for... Arrival Magazine gives entry-level experience to emerging writers  
Ariesha Mais outside the Ignite building entrance located at Lakeshore Campus
Photo credits: Victoria Hincapie Gomez  

Co-managing editor of Arrival Magazine Ariesha Mais, 20, says student-led magazines are important for students to develop first-hand experience. 

“They are important because for many students it can be their first publication, so it’s a great opportunity to start putting yourself out there without putting yourself out there too much. If someone is scared to submit to a bigger magazine, they can come to us first and get the feedback they need to go on to bigger magazines,” she says. 

Arrival is an online literary magazine led by a collective of students within the Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing program( BCPW). 

The magazine publishes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and creative non-fiction writing by emerging writers from undergraduate creative writing programs across Canada. 

Their funding comes from the Faculty of Media and Creative Arts and Design, and the initiative is overseen by Program Coordinator Meaghan Strimas, and Faculty Member David James Brock. 

Mais won first place in the province-fiction and creative non-fiction writing contest offered by BCPW in partnership with the Humber Literary Review back in 2022, while studying at Pickering High School. 

She says winning this contest was very affirming. 

“It was very affirming that I was on the right path because previously I wanted to be a geologist. I decided to go with writing, and winning the contest made me realize people actually like what I write. I was like, this is a good sign, ” she says. 

Mais previously worked as handling editor for Spotlight, before their issues got discontinued due to lack of funding. Spotlight was an online supplement of the Humber Literary Review.

It was a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts (FMCA) and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning (FLA), and jointly funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation (ORI) and the FMCA since 2019. 

Spotlight became inactive last April, but the Arrival team had been working on their first issue since December 2023. 

Mais says although she was disheartened when hearing the news, but Arrival was in the works.  

“Arrival was always going to happen, but it gave us the motivation to put our all into this. In December 2023 we started plotting out what we wanted it to be exactly, figured out what type of work we wanted, and what the website was going to look like,” she says.

Mais says she has more responsibilities working for Arrival than she ever did working in Spotlight.  

“When I was the handling editor I was focusing on one or two stories, but now I’m looking at a bunch of stories and deciding what is going to be in the issues. When I was handling editor, it was more helping a story that was already selected become the best it could be,” she says.

BCPW Program Coordinator Meaghan Strimas and Spotlight Project Lead, says she had a good time running Spotlight, but all good things come to an end. 

 “We might try and get it up and running again at some point, but right now the reality is, there’s only so much anyone can do at a time. We had a good run, but now we have other projects. When one door closes, another one opens,” she says. 

Arrival is volunteer-based unlike Spotlight which worked on a salary basis, but the Faculty of Media and Creative Arts and Design helps cover their website development costs.

Strimas says a big part of being a writer is building resilience.

“People who succeed as writers are those who keep writing, keep reading, and keep practicing. It’s very normal to be worried about job prospects and about one’s future, it’s a tough climate right now. But, there’s always room in the industry if you work hard and allow yourself to make great connections with people in industry along the way,” she says.  

Strimas says students are really interested and hungry for this kind of hands-on experience. 

“They love the community aspect of putting together a magazine full of writers across the country. Is a pretty special experience, I find that students are more than willing with our guidance to participate,” she says. 

Arrival is currently accepting submissions for their December issue entitled Growth. The submission deadline is on Nov.9.
 
Read more about Arrival at: https://www.arrivalmagazine.org/about

Victoria Hincapie