No. 26 applications are now live here.
Applications close Friday, January 23rd @ 11:59 p.m. CST.
1/ This issue’s steering themes.
GUIDE TO NO. 26
In its twenty-sixth issue, SPARK is searching through the ruins for what remains. After grace, horror, or celebration have fallen, what is left behind in the wasteland? In the aftermath of the rise, the peak, and the fall — how do you react to the action sequence? Issue No. 26 seeks what arises from the ashes, from nothing when all seems futile.
When the dust settles, this is what remains.
LITERARY INSPIRATIONS
THE STRANGER IN THE LIFEBOAT BY MITCH ALBOM / THE STRANGER BY ALBERT CAMUS / PARIS IS BURNING / CARL JUNG’S COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS / SZA’S SOS / “LIVES OF INFAMOUS MEN” BY JACQUES DERRIDA / CHARLES DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION / SIGMUND FREUD / THE 1975’S NOTES ON A CONDITIONAL FORM / FREDERIC JAMESON / A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN BY VIRGINIA WOOLF / FRANKENSTEIN BY MARY SHELLEY / BEYONCE’S RENAISSANCE / THE WASTE LAND BY TS ELIOT / DAVID BOWIE’S BLACKSTAR / ELLIOT SMITH’S EITHER/OR / BLUETS BY MAGGIE NELSON / MARCEL DUCHAMP AND DADA / THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS BY ARUNDHATI ROY / THE WALKING DEAD / THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY / ETHEL CAIN’S PREACHER’S DAUGHTER / THE ILIAD BY HOMER / FRANCISCO GOYA / ERNEST HEMINGWAY / HOLE’S LIVE THROUGH THIS / “ROMANTIC” BY MANNEQUIN PUSSY / CABARET BY JOE MASTEROFF / BJÖRK’S POST / MITSKI’S THE LAND IS INHOSPITABLE AND SO ARE WE / CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD BY GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ / SORRY, BABY / OVER THE GARDEN WALL / WALL-E
THE STRANGER IN THE LIFEBOAT BY MITCH ALBOM / THE STRANGER BY ALBERT CAMUS / PARIS IS BURNING / CARL JUNG’S COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS / SZA’S SOS / “LIVES OF INFAMOUS MEN” BY JACQUES DERRIDA / CHARLES DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION / SIGMUND FREUD / THE 1975’S NOTES ON A CONDITIONAL FORM / FREDERIC JAMESON / A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN BY VIRGINIA WOOLF / FRANKENSTEIN BY MARY SHELLEY / BEYONCE’S RENAISSANCE / THE WASTE LAND BY TS ELIOT / DAVID BOWIE’S BLACKSTAR / ELLIOT SMITH’S EITHER/OR / BLUETS BY MAGGIE NELSON / MARCEL DUCHAMP AND DADA / THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS BY ARUNDHATI ROY / THE WALKING DEAD / THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY / ETHEL CAIN’S PREACHER’S DAUGHTER / THE ILIAD BY HOMER / FRANCISCO GOYA / ERNEST HEMINGWAY / HOLE’S LIVE THROUGH THIS / “ROMANTIC” BY MANNEQUIN PUSSY / CABARET BY JOE MASTEROFF / BJÖRK’S POST / MITSKI’S THE LAND IS INHOSPITABLE AND SO ARE WE / CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD BY GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ / SORRY, BABY / OVER THE GARDEN WALL / WALL-E
VISUAL INSPIRATIONS
JEWEL TONES / VIENNESE ACTIONISM / ALBERTO MIELGO / CATHARSIS / PETRA COLLINS / FUR / SATOSHI KON / UNNATURAL HAIR COLOR / CYPERPUNK ANIME / PARIS IS BURNING (1990) / MOWALOLA CAMPAIGNS / PIERCINGS / DONNIE DARKO (2001) / EXTREMES / NEON GENESIS EVANGELION (1995) / WIDE SHOTS / FRISSON / ANNIHILATION (2018) / MYTHIC / UNCANNY / DAVID FINCHER / DREAM STATE / EVOLUTION / PANIC MOVEMENT / SPIKES / GREGG ARAKI / CLAWS / DADAISM
JEWEL TONES / VIENNESE ACTIONISM / ALBERTO MIELGO / CATHARSIS / PETRA COLLINS / FUR / SATOSHI KON / UNNATURAL HAIR COLOR / CYPERPUNK ANIME / PARIS IS BURNING (1990) / MOWALOLA CAMPAIGNS / PIERCINGS / DONNIE DARKO (2001) / EXTREMES / NEON GENESIS EVANGELION (1995) / WIDE SHOTS / FRISSON / ANNIHILATION (2018) / MYTHIC / UNCANNY / DAVID FINCHER / DREAM STATE / EVOLUTION / PANIC MOVEMENT / SPIKES / GREGG ARAKI / CLAWS / DADAISM
SAMPLE WRITING PITCHES
For Print writing applicants — try to not pitch stories too similar to these pitches. They are meant to serve as inspiration for your own pitches, both in terms of format and guiding themes.
Photo: jinxstanski
on Pinterest
LIAR LIAR
Pen to paper, chin to chest: something about black ink in my cardboard-backed notebooks makes me want to lie. My memories resist reality while I try to write them down. My patchwork history comes out self-corrected, smoothed over, and packaged into pleasant little truths that hide the struggle of understanding myself. I expertly capture a lifetime of self-reflexive psychoanalysis into two or three concise sentences. My life feels equivalent, in those moments of writing, to the results of an overexpensive anthropological study. If I look at myself through these stories I've spun, I come out all wrong.
I try and try to reproduce that element of vulnerability or insanity which makes all the great writers. Yet that’s the exact sort of thing I’ve spent my life trying to insulate myself from. I’ve made being a writer all smooth to the touch on the outside, fingers slipping over meaning without really brushing the surface.
My epiphanies are falsified or exaggerated at best. I perform for the audience in narrative as they watch my antics, uninterested. No one likes melodrama —so why can’t I tell the honest truth in writing instead?
LIAR LIAR traces the distance between the literary and personal. If we consider writing to be a space for authentic artistic expression, why do I feel that nothing I put on paper is real at all?
By Senior Print Editor Anjali Krishna
Pen to paper, chin to chest: something about black ink in my cardboard-backed notebooks makes me want to lie. My memories resist reality while I try to write them down. My patchwork history comes out self-corrected, smoothed over, and packaged into pleasant little truths that hide the struggle of understanding myself. I expertly capture a lifetime of self-reflexive psychoanalysis into two or three concise sentences. My life feels equivalent, in those moments of writing, to the results of an overexpensive anthropological study. If I look at myself through these stories I've spun, I come out all wrong.
I try and try to reproduce that element of vulnerability or insanity which makes all the great writers. Yet that’s the exact sort of thing I’ve spent my life trying to insulate myself from. I’ve made being a writer all smooth to the touch on the outside, fingers slipping over meaning without really brushing the surface.
My epiphanies are falsified or exaggerated at best. I perform for the audience in narrative as they watch my antics, uninterested. No one likes melodrama —so why can’t I tell the honest truth in writing instead?
LIAR LIAR traces the distance between the literary and personal. If we consider writing to be a space for authentic artistic expression, why do I feel that nothing I put on paper is real at all?
By Senior Print Editor Anjali Krishna
Photo: Rom on Pinterest
Heart-Shaped Box
The lights are dim, and the air is thick with tobacco. It’s the late ‘80s, or maybe the early ‘90s. A modest amount of people mill around the room. It is tiny in comparison to the venues where this up-and-coming band would later perform. A man and a woman say their greetings to each other, and she’s in love at first sight. Or perhaps she’s simply interested, or maybe she’s still trying to figure out how she feels. Her hair is a bright, bleach blonde, falling in waves around her head. Or, maybe it’s black, or brown, cut short in a shag. People can’t really decide how the two met, when or why. However, they generally agree that she wanted him first, and that she had always been ready to chase what she wanted.
The romance is quick — the two are married and have a child together less than 3 years after meeting. His daughter was not yet 2 years old when Cobain picked up a shotgun in his Seattle home. The rest is history.
After 1994, there was no need to dwell on any realistic idea of what Cobain could have become. He was a rock legend, and he would die at the peak of his legacy, forever immortalizing himself as untouchable. Courtney kept living. She was everything but untouchable.
Heart-Shaped Box will tell the story of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. It dwells on life after tragedy, on what happens when one person stops and the other has to keep going. It tells the story of a woman fixated on ruining her own legacy and a man who left his behind.
By Associate Print Editor Danielle Yampuler
The lights are dim, and the air is thick with tobacco. It’s the late ‘80s, or maybe the early ‘90s. A modest amount of people mill around the room. It is tiny in comparison to the venues where this up-and-coming band would later perform. A man and a woman say their greetings to each other, and she’s in love at first sight. Or perhaps she’s simply interested, or maybe she’s still trying to figure out how she feels. Her hair is a bright, bleach blonde, falling in waves around her head. Or, maybe it’s black, or brown, cut short in a shag. People can’t really decide how the two met, when or why. However, they generally agree that she wanted him first, and that she had always been ready to chase what she wanted.
The romance is quick — the two are married and have a child together less than 3 years after meeting. His daughter was not yet 2 years old when Cobain picked up a shotgun in his Seattle home. The rest is history.
After 1994, there was no need to dwell on any realistic idea of what Cobain could have become. He was a rock legend, and he would die at the peak of his legacy, forever immortalizing himself as untouchable. Courtney kept living. She was everything but untouchable.
Heart-Shaped Box will tell the story of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. It dwells on life after tragedy, on what happens when one person stops and the other has to keep going. It tells the story of a woman fixated on ruining her own legacy and a man who left his behind.
By Associate Print Editor Danielle Yampuler
ABUNDANCE
My house is a fortress.
It’s well defended by a wall of toilet paper and kitchen towels. There is an armory stocked to the brim with rows of batteries, boxes of soap, and stacks of sticky notes that no one has ever touched. In the kitchen, there sits a fruit bowl stacked tall with apples and oranges that have begun to rot from the bottom.
My dad tells me my late grandpa used to be a hoarder, and that I take after him. It’s strange how I am just like a man I’ve never truly met.
We collect. We collect not for the fun of it, but because we fear. We fear that the decades it took to establish a life here might be upended in a matter of days. We hold on to things like deli meat containers and cardboard boxes because we never learned to let go — let go of our things, of our hardships, and of everything we have ever loved and feared.
This is a story of every immigrant household. Our habits of stashing, collecting, hoarding — they’re not for nothing. ABUNDANCE reminds us of that.
By Associate Print Editor Jenni Wang
My house is a fortress.
It’s well defended by a wall of toilet paper and kitchen towels. There is an armory stocked to the brim with rows of batteries, boxes of soap, and stacks of sticky notes that no one has ever touched. In the kitchen, there sits a fruit bowl stacked tall with apples and oranges that have begun to rot from the bottom.
My dad tells me my late grandpa used to be a hoarder, and that I take after him. It’s strange how I am just like a man I’ve never truly met.
We collect. We collect not for the fun of it, but because we fear. We fear that the decades it took to establish a life here might be upended in a matter of days. We hold on to things like deli meat containers and cardboard boxes because we never learned to let go — let go of our things, of our hardships, and of everything we have ever loved and feared.
This is a story of every immigrant household. Our habits of stashing, collecting, hoarding — they’re not for nothing. ABUNDANCE reminds us of that.
By Associate Print Editor Jenni Wang
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE THEME?
Keep an eye on our social media for posts about in-person tabling and info sessions during the week of January 12th. You can also contact us at the following emails:
For creative application questions, contact directors at
creative@sparkmagazinetx.com
For writing application questions, contact editors at
editorial@sparkmagazinetx.com
For design application questions, contact directors at
design@sparkmagazinetx.com
creative@sparkmagazinetx.com
For writing application questions, contact editors at
editorial@sparkmagazinetx.com
For design application questions, contact directors at
design@sparkmagazinetx.com
For business application questions, contact directors at
business@sparkmagazinetx.com
For general inquiries, contact Abby Bagepally at
managing@sparkmagazinetx.com
To reach the Editor In Chief, contact Ava Jiang at
editor@sparkmagazinetx.com
business@sparkmagazinetx.com
For general inquiries, contact Abby Bagepally at
managing@sparkmagazinetx.com
To reach the Editor In Chief, contact Ava Jiang at
editor@sparkmagazinetx.com
BECOMING A PART OF NO. 26 STAFF
How to Apply:
1/ Complete the application here. You may only apply to three departments and if accepted, can hold a maximum of two positions.
2/ Before you submit, ensure that all Google files have been set to “Anyone with the link can view.” Due to the volume of applications we receive, any application we cannot fully access is automatically disqualified.
3/ Applications close Friday, January 23rd at 11:59pm CST. No late submissions will be considered. If offered a position, keep an eye out on your email inbox for an acceptance letter and immediate next steps by Monday, January 26th.
1/ Complete the application here. You may only apply to three departments and if accepted, can hold a maximum of two positions.
2/ Before you submit, ensure that all Google files have been set to “Anyone with the link can view.” Due to the volume of applications we receive, any application we cannot fully access is automatically disqualified.
3/ Applications close Friday, January 23rd at 11:59pm CST. No late submissions will be considered. If offered a position, keep an eye out on your email inbox for an acceptance letter and immediate next steps by Monday, January 26th.
Terms of Eligibility:
1/ You must be a registered undergraduate or graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin.
2/ You do not need prior editorial experience, but may be asked to produce a portfolio depending on the department-specific application.
3/ Upon acceptance, you must consent to signing a Work Release Form and Liability Release Form. This is so you can work on photoshoots and we can publish your work in print and online!
4/ You must be 18+ years old at the time of application submission.
5/ You must agree to uphold SPARK’s zero-tolerance policy and understand that failure to comply with our standards will result in immediate dismissal from staff.
1/ You must be a registered undergraduate or graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin.
2/ You do not need prior editorial experience, but may be asked to produce a portfolio depending on the department-specific application.
3/ Upon acceptance, you must consent to signing a Work Release Form and Liability Release Form. This is so you can work on photoshoots and we can publish your work in print and online!
4/ You must be 18+ years old at the time of application submission.
5/ You must agree to uphold SPARK’s zero-tolerance policy and understand that failure to comply with our standards will result in immediate dismissal from staff.
To offer a broad range of opportunities, SPARK is divided into four branches — EDITORIAL, CREATIVE, DESIGN, and BUSINESS — that all together house 13 departments. You can apply to any three of them and hold a maximum of two positions.
EDITORIAL
Departments: Print, Web.
Writers concept, pitch, and draft stories for our website, biannual print issues, and sometimes serve as ad hoc copywriters throughout the semester.
Departments: Print, Web.
Writers concept, pitch, and draft stories for our website, biannual print issues, and sometimes serve as ad hoc copywriters throughout the semester.
CREATIVE
Departments: Modeling, Photography, Styling, Set Styling, Videography, Hair & Makeup.
As members of SPARK’s largest branch, creatives work on- and off-set to produce editorial-level visual assets published on the website and in biannual print issues.
Departments: Modeling, Photography, Styling, Set Styling, Videography, Hair & Makeup.
As members of SPARK’s largest branch, creatives work on- and off-set to produce editorial-level visual assets published on the website and in biannual print issues.
DESIGN
Departments: Layout, Graphic Design.
Designers are in charge of magazine layouts, digital art, front-end web development, and producing other mixed-media assets for print and online publication.
Departments: Layout, Graphic Design.
Designers are in charge of magazine layouts, digital art, front-end web development, and producing other mixed-media assets for print and online publication.
BUSINESS
Departments: Social Media, Marketing, Events.
Business branch members plan and host events, manage our newsletter, create and organize SPARK merchandise, work with big fashion/makeup brands, and keep our social media up-to-date.
Departments: Social Media, Marketing, Events.
Business branch members plan and host events, manage our newsletter, create and organize SPARK merchandise, work with big fashion/makeup brands, and keep our social media up-to-date.
ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY
SPARK does not and will never tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, class, national origin, religion, age, or disability. As a non-UT affiliated organization, SPARK’s Executive Board reserves the right to permanently dismiss any leadership or staff member whom it feels has failed to uphold SPARK’s standards of fairness, equity, and inclusion. We are under no obligation to facilitate an accused member’s defense or obtain permission from the university.
For more information about applying to SPARK, refer to our FAQ or contact us.
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