Hedge Apple is a literary magazine published more or less once a year by the students and faculty of Hagerstown Community College in Maryland.
How the heck did you come up with the name Hedge Apple?
Well, I’ll tell you…
On a grassy hillock between the classroom building and the library, stretches a stately row of Osage orange trees (Maclura pomifera), also known as bowwood, yellowwood, bois d’arc, and locally, hedge apples. The trees have thorny branches and dark-yellow tinged bark. But their most unusual characteristic is the fruit, a yellowish-green sphere with a wrinkled texture similar to a cortex. The fruit ripens in autumn and falls into the grass where it lies, bulbous and brainy, well into spring. The thick-boled, rough-barked trees, lined like the arcaded columns of a Romanesque terrace, and the distinctive fruit form one of the picturesque landmarks of the HCC campus.
What to Submit:
At the Hedge Apple, we believe that literature is an essential part of humanity. Literature has power: it can give us hope and healing, bring us together, and give voice to the marginalized. It’s not some highbrow pursuit reserved only for intellectuals—literature is for everyone. Fresh voices are essential, and we love fledgling writers. We are passionate about helping you find your niche, whether it’s through our feedback or the resources provided on our website. OK. OK. We want to hear from you veteran wordsmiths too, so please send us your stuff as well. There are three of us; we’re friendly and eclectic, and we want to hear what you have to say.
We publish pieces that make us feel or think, especially those that do both. Only, we aren’t stopping at the written word, so think outside the box and send us your visual art, clever videos or audio recordings you have made. Make us laugh. Make us cry. Send shivers down our spine. Surprise us. Show us the transcendent. Present your witty dissection of pop culture to the world. Unlock the riddles of the universe. Send us off on a fascinating intellectual tangent. Breathe new life into a stale literary form. Challenge our belief systems. Flash us with your fiction. Make us believe in alternate realities. Metered verse, free verse, thriller, fantasy— you get the idea.
Submission Guidelines:
Please send fiction, poetry, nonfiction, visual art, and videos to hedgeapple@hagerstowncc.edu with the subject “Submission.” Please include a cover letter with a word count, a brief bio, and, if you are writing for one of our themed issues, please mention the theme in the letter. We do accept simultaneous submissions; however, please be courteous and notify us in your cover letter, and withdraw your story from consideration upon acceptance at another venue.
Manuscript Guidelines:
All the standard rules apply. Please use Times New Roman or some similarly legible font, and please label all files with your name and the title of the work. Please send Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx) files. Please don’t submit PDFs.
Payment and Rights:
Contributors will receive a complimentary copy of their work, if it’s published in print. We ask for the usual North American rights. Copyright remains with the author, but if the work is republished, we ask that the Hedge Apple be credited.
Response Times
We are attempting to respond to all submissions within two weeks. If you haven’t heard anything from us within that time frame, don’t be afraid to email us at hedgeapple@hagerstowncc.edu with a clear subject line.
Masthead
Editors: Johanna Bulley, Lynn Michael Martin, Michael Tucker
Art Editor: Clara Jenkins
Faculty Supervisor: Amanda Miller
