The aroma of delectable baked goods wafted through the air, enticing students to buy treats from HELM’s (Harker’s Eclectic Literary Magazine’s) bake sale. From 3 p.m. – 5 p.m. on December 11th, members manned the booth, selling a variety goods from scrumptious brownies and comforting tea to elegant notebooks and Christmas themed treats. The club is using the sales from its fundraiser to go into the publishing of the literary magazine.

“It’s a good way to fundraise for money by filling the students’ stomachs as well,” David Zhu (9) said.

HELM, has used this week to raise awareness for the magazine to promote more students to submit their pieces.

“We’re going to be putting up posters all over campus to encourage submissions, as well as have a baked goods and hot chocolate fundraiser Wednesday after school,” Juhi Muthal (11), Editor-in-Chief of the publication, said.

Writers, poets, photographers, and artists submit pieces, which then go through the members of HELM, who use specific criteria to narrow down which pieces to feature.

“The submissions should stand out in a certain way and be well-crafted. The publication should be easy to follow and pleasant to read, with a variety of artistic categories,” HELM member Agata Sorotokin (11) said.

HELM previously used to focus mainly on poetry, but since then it has branched out. The club has further embraced short fiction and essays in the past decade. They also added the categories of artwork and photography in the past decade. One of the goals of the club this year is to create a website where all past, current, and future publications will be available. Dr. Anne Douglas, advisor to HELM, described how the magazine will be available on two different platforms.

“We both [Juhi and I] agree we like print copy,” she said, “We want something to hold in our hands. Although it seems old fashioned on one hand, on the other it’s near and dear to our hearts, so we are going to have both a digitized version of HELM in this coming spring’s issue, and a paper copy.”

Behind the scenes, after choosing the works that will go into the magazine, the members of the staff work on aspects such as design in order to ready HELM for publication.

“We start off with the layout of the submissions, then take it to the designers so they can put together the design elements of the magazine. Once we have a complete file, we get cost estimates and then send the magazine off to get printed,” Juhi said.

HELM has more freshman members than in previous years, this year, which Juhi states is “encouraging because it entails the club will be in good hands in the future.”

Evani Radiya-Dixit, a freshman and HELM club member, was formerly part of Enlightening, the middle school’s literary publication, as poetry editor, and aspires to continue on this track in HELM.

“I also hope that I can play a role even though I am a freshman and there are many upperclassmen,” she said.

HELM submissions are due to [email protected] by Jan 20th as the club recently  extended the deadline.