•  
  •  
 

Submission Guidelines for The Mercury

Contents

Submission Deadline

The Mercury publishes annually each spring and typically accepts submissions from October 1 through January 2. To be considered for publication in that year's issue, submissions must be received in their entirety by the submission deadline. Any submission received after the January 2 (11:59PM) deadline may be evaluated for the following year's issue.

Who Can Submit?

Current Gettysburg College students may submit to The Mercury, provided the submitter owns the copyright to the work being submitted or is authorized by the copyright owner(s) to submit the work. Authors generally are the initial copyright owners of unpublished work.

{ top }

General Submission Rules

All Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry works should be submitted as Microsoft Word documents. Artwork should be submitted as a JPEG file.

In order to submit, you must first create an account in The Cupola and will be prompted to do so upon submission. This account will have your name and email and will allow us to keep track of your submissions. If your are published, this account will also allow you to receive monthly download reports for your work. However, to ensure an anonymous review process, please do not include your name or any identifying information on your submitted documents.

{ top }

Genres

Fiction and Nonfiction

Suggested length is up to 2,500 words. All genres and styles welcome.

Poetry

Suggested total submissions is 3-6 poems. All forms and styles welcome. You must submit each poem as a separate submission as they will be evaluated individually.

Artwork

Suggested total submissions is 3-6 works. You must submit each work as a separate submission. All forms of work welcome, including but not limited to photography, painting, sculpture, and installations.

Images of artwork must be high resolution:

  • 266dpi for tones (either grayscale or color)
  • 500ppi-900dpi for combination tones (either grayscale or color)
  • 900ppi-1200dpi for monochrome (1-bit) images

Other

If your submission doesn't fit into one of the above categories, contact The Mercury editors for assistance. For example, The Mercury is happy to include graphic novels, stage plays or translation work.

{ top }

Copyright and Author Rights

Authors who submit to The Mercury agree to the following:

  • The author retains copyright of the work.
  • The author grants the Gettysburg College English Department and The Cupola a non-exclusive license to print, publish, reproduce, and/or distribute the work in print and/or online, and to market the work. This means that the author gives the Journal permission to publish the work, but the author maintains ownership over the work and may grant additional non-exclusive licenses to others in the future. For example, after a work is published in The Mercury, the author may revise it and submit it to another journal for consideration.
  • The author agrees not to publish the submitted work in print or digital form prior to publication by The Mercury.
  • The author must accept full responsibility for the content of the work, including the reuse of copyrighted materials within the work that fall outside the realm of Fair Use.
  • Please be aware that after an issue of The Mercury is published, individual works cannot be revised or removed.
  • Please note that search engines (such as Google and Google Scholar) will index works in The Mercury and works will be findable on the open web now and in the future.

All authors will have the chance to review the Submission Agreement before submitting their work. Please read this over carefully before submitting.

{ top }

General Terms and Conditions of Use

The Mercury is an open access journal, meaning it is freely available on the open web for anyone to access and read. The contents of this journal are protected by copyright; users agree to abide by U.S. copyright law when using this site.

Users of the The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College agree not to misuse the website and/or software. Editors of The Mercury agree to evaluate and peer-review all submissions in a prompt manner and communicate decisions and desired revisions to the author. Administrators of The Cupola agree to fulfill any/all duties mentioned in the journal’s policies. If any part of the journal’s policies or submission agreement is found to be invalid, the remainder of the policies and submission agreement remain valid and enforced.

These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.

{ top }