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Spec, as we affectionately refer to Spectator, is a student-run club organization at New Canaan High School in New Canaan, CT. For well over a decade (Mr. Kingsbury is rumored to have enjoyed a meeting or two in his days as a student), the students involved with Spectator have published an annual magazine containing student-written poetry, prose, dramatic works, lyrics, and student-created art in a number of mediums.
Spectator works on a submission system. Any current student at NCHS may submit his or her work to the magazine. Once submitted, pieces are presented anonymously at our weekly meetings, for reading and discussion. Once we have delved into the piece both in terms of meaning and form, the group votes on the piece. In our votes, there are three possible outcomes: Accept, which implies that the piece has no errors, and should be published in its current state; Accept with Edits, which implies that a piece is accepted on the condition that certain technical points be fixed (e.g. punctuation, capitalization, grammar, etc); or Revise, in which case the piece will be returned to the author with comments and questions. If a piece is voted Revise, the author may choose to later re-submit the piece. If a piece is accepted (with or without edits), the author is revealed. While we also accept annonymous submissions, we encourage authors to take pride in there work and stamp their cognomen on it. Whatever floats your boat.
Artisits submissions are handled slightly differently, and are not generally presented to the membership as written works are. Submissions are also handled differenly due to the medium. Artists wishing to submit any work should talk with the editors or shoot an e-mail to [email protected] and we'll arrange a way to review the work.
Every author retains the right to choose which of his accepted pieces are published (a maximum of three per year), and may choose to retract a piece from the magazine even once it has been accepted.
The magazine itself is usually published in late spring, either in May or in the beginning of June. They go on sale at NCHS for a small fee to handle publishing costs, and are also available for reading in the NCHS and New Canaan Public Libraries.