With several school meeting announcements, flyers, a fundraiser, 73 submissions so far, and hours of work, the Harker Eclectic Literary Magazine (HELM) has come a long way since the beginning of the year.

By offering incentives such as extending the submissions deadline to the current one of Feb. 1 and offering every fifth submission a $15 gift card, the club has received 73 submissions — 6 short stories, 3 essays, 5 poetry submissions, 38 photography submissions, and 21 pieces of artwork.

Even with the constant reminders and expanding deadlines, many students still did not consider submitting to the magazine due to time constraints.

“I don’t know, I’ll probably submit something, but what’s preventing me is forgetting and being distracted,” sophomore Gurutam Thockchom said.

After the submissions deadline has passed, the club will proceed to select those to be featured and create the layout of the magazine.

“The club members and editors discuss and then vote on which submissions they’d like to feature, based on the work’s technical aptitude, originality, and whether or not readers are able to connect to it in some way,” Editor-In-Chief Juhi Muthal (11) said.

As in past years, artwork submissions are becoming much more frequent as compared to written works.

“This year, the largest number of submissions continues to be photography. […] However, we have fewer poetry and prose pieces, college essays, and faculty submissions,” HELM Webmaster and Designer Katie Gu (12) said.

After finalizing the works to be included in the magazine, the design team creates and organizes the final layout and structure of the magazine. Through its members’ increased activities this year, HELM has made itself better known around the Upper School.

“Club attendance has definitely gone up since last year, but [….] we hadn’t done any publicity before club fair this past September. As far as publicity efforts go, we’re placing more emphasis on making the club known,” HELM Publicity Coordinator Efrey Noten (12) said.

The club has yet to decide whether the magazine will be centered around a theme, something that has been done in past years. HELM expects to publish the magazine May 1, though it may be extended to receive more submissions.