Preparations for the 85th issue of NIU’s literary magazine The Towers are already in progress, even though it will not be published until spring of 2005. Students who wish to submit work to the magazine may do so until January. The magazine staff accepts many kinds of literary work.

“We try to have a variety of work. There is fiction, non-fiction and poetry,” said Christine Brown, a graduate student and editor in chief of The Towers. “There is also an art section that includes photography and all types of media.”

There is a $100 prize given for the best submission in each of those four categories. The best submission is chosen by the editors, who also choose what goes into the magazine.

Not all submissions are accepted, Brown said. Sometimes inappropriate submissions are sent in, but they are discarded. The literary magazine hopes for as much as 100 types of works to come in, but the amount of submissions depends on how much advertising the magazine does for that year.

Submissions to The Towers are open to all NIU graduate and undergraduate students. The Towers will be published in April or May, Brown said.

Before The Towers provided space for literary expression, poems and short stories were published in the Northern Star’s predecessor, The Northern Illinois. The first issue of The Towers was published in 1939 by the journalistic fraternities Sigma Tau Delta and Nu Iota Pi.

The magazine was put on hold during the World War II years, 1941-1946, due to low enrollment and paper shortage. The Northern Illinois began publishing one page of literary work once in awhile to continue students’ expression.

In May of 1947, the magazine was ressurected, and copies once again were distributed all over campus as they are today. Beginning in 1963, two editions were published each year due to a high amount of literary contributions. Recently, only one edition of the magazine per year is published.