Chrysalis

In order to comply with the College's procedures to prevent our community from exposure to the COVID-19 virus, the release event of our 2020 issue has been postponed. Look for us on Instagram (chrysalisjournal) and Facebook (Chrysalis Literary and Arts Journal) for more updates! Stay Safe, El Paso!

There is still time to send us your work to be considered for our 2019 issue! Our reading period ends October 15 Check our submissions' guidelines and send us your work to chrysalis@epcc.edu

The release party of our new issue is May 24! We hope you can join us to celebrate the completion of another year and another issue!

Chrysalis has a new reading period from April 15 - October 15 Please review guidelines before submitting. We look forward to reading your work!

Get your free copy of our 2017 issue at any of El Paso Community College's Libraries Cover Image by Rex Waide

Chrysalis is coming soon,  but you can download a digital copy now at www.tiny.cc/chrysalis2016

As we begin our new year, we're looking forward to all your fresh literary and art submissions!  While the deadline to submit isn't until December 1st, why put off now what you know you want to do? Visit  http://chrysalisepcc.blogspot.com/p/submit-to-chrysalis.html for our submission guidelines! Remember, you don't have to be affiliated with EPCC to submit your work!

Hello all, Your friendly, neighborhood editor-in-chief here again with some information, a bit of knowledge, and some musings to share with you all. For those whose time is very valuable to them, I would like to state that we are still alive and kicking (though they are small kicks with great pauses in between). I would first like to say I hope your classes are going well so far. This semester still barely started so make sure to study and keep your heads above water. But while you're all hard at work, feel free to  give us some submissions as well for the Chrysalis.  All you writers, artists, and photographers out there, please submit any and all work you have!  It's been a hectic two years now, especially with me attending UTEP and EPCC earlier this year for the first time, but I've learned to gauge the level of difficulty of my new classes much better over time. I'll still be here for one more Chrysalis, until I finally finish my degree and move on, but...

Your senior editor here, filling in with some much-wanted news on the Chrysalis. Firstly, I would like to thank Kelli, our wonderful faculty advisor in charge for all her help (and patience), Ricky, the best layout editor one could ask for, and both of our associate editors, Cassandra (whom introduced herself below) and Julio. All our hard work was not for naught (does that even make sense?). I would like to say that for all our loyal, hungry Chrysalis audience, the time is nigh upon us when the publication will come to fruition. I must admit, I underestimated how much work UTEP required of me (this was my first semester enrolling in both EPCC and UTEP concurrently) and as a result, work was even more hectic than last year. For those who remember - or are willing to scroll down to the previous blog posts - last year as my first year with the Chrysalis was an adventure to say the least. But we all survived. This year, we did run into a good many issues from lack of time to v...

Cassandra Mendoza Literary Editor EPCC Student Hobbies: reading, listening to music Artistic expression in the form of literature has always been a big part of my life. From a young age, I've devoted a lot of time to reading about a plethora of subjects. My main passion, though, is science, and I plan on becoming an astrophysicist and eventually writing my own book about modern science. I’m also a feminist, and I spend a lot of time reading and writing about social justice issues. Lastly, I really enjoy music.    

Got Editor Skills?  An Eye for Art? EPCC students, would you like to work on the college’s Literary & Arts journal? Chrysalis , EPCC’s literary and arts journal is looking for editors for the 2014-15 issue. Editors are given a small stipend. The job requires attending editorial and staff meetings. Strong candidates must be self-disciplined, able be able to work with others and alone, while meeting deadlines.  LITERARY EDITOR (Fall and Spring) -Read and consider submissions -Edit submissions -Work with writers on any major revisions -Assist with layout and production -Completion of English 1302 required VISUAL ARTS EDITOR (Fall and Spring) -Review and consider submissions -Knowledge of Photoshop and image editing software a plus -Assist with layout and production --Completion of ART 1311 required LAYOUT EDITOR (Spring) -Work with printer as required -Direct layout and production -Able to use Adobe InDesign and Photoshop Ap...

Good afternoon all! Last blog I stated how were doing radical things here in the Chrysalis, such as trying to implement our users' works in the blog, posting more frequently and more relevant stuff, and whatever else we can think of. We reached out to one of our contributors, Paola Rayos, who submitted two wonderful pictures, Una Larga Caminata and El Tercer Aire for this year's Chrysalis. We conducted our first interview to get to learn more of her, which she was happy to oblige in! And without further ado, here it is: 1.     To start off, would you introduce yourself to our viewers? Are you a faculty member or a student? My name is Paola and I am 19 years of age, I currently graduated from EPCC Valle Verde, and now I am transferring to UTEP. 2.     So, what do you do? What are your interests? I like to write and take pictures but before those my passion is singing. 3.     Why did you choose to pursue all of that? I chose to pursue photography ...

Greetings Everyone! Have you all been enjoying your summer vacations thus far? I said we here at the Chrysalis had some surprises in store for our viewers (which numbers in the hundreds... right?). Anywho, some of the new things we'll be doing here is posting user material that either did not ma ke it in the Chrysalis  or there was simply not enough room to fit it in. We'll also try to get in touch with users an d even do sh ort Q&As with them!  We here at the Chrysalis feel we can not only help people get their foot in the door to becoming successful in their paths but we can help give that professional feel with interviews, author/artist biographies, and so on. For those of you who are interested in doing interviews by all means email us at  Chrysalis@epcc.edu  and while you're at it, submit a piece or two (or three) for our upcoming Chrysalis next year! For now, expect more and more frequent posts from us! Any suggestions, tips, and critiques you have f...

Hello all! Have you been able to breathe yet from finals or do you still have a couple days left? For those of us with finished finals, enjoy your freedom, you earned it! For all the rest, don't worry, you're alone. I still have one last final myself until I can finally breathe for a total of maybe one day before going back to planning for summer Chrysalis work haha. Summer Vacation! Today will be a short blog post as we're all still feeling pretty elated after the recent success of the Chrysalis and the faculty member in charge is still swamped with grading hundreds of finals and dealing with crying students and whatnot. You know, the usual. But as far as Chrysalis news goes, stay tuned in for some really good summer blog surprises! By the way, don't be afraid to submit anything right now! The earlier we receive submissions, the easier my job gets haha. What will you all do this summer? For the more ambitious viewers we have (if we have any at all lol) I'...

Here, at the Chrysalis, in between bouts of procrastination and reading gigantic loads of poems, essays, short stories, and anything else required, we actually do like to plan for the future. For instance, did you know the Chrysalis is actually over 30 years old? 31, to be exact, this publication was first released in 1973 as little more than a small pamphlet totaling no more than maybe 30 pages. Over time, it not only changed its name, logo, and branding, but it became a magazine, it saw quarterly releases as well as annual, and now at this point in its life, here we have the traditional annual release schedule of quite a large publication. This begs the question though: What's left for us to? Where could we expand? Perhaps more frequent releases? How about a bigger book? (Though of course that would require more submissions and advertising which in turn requires a bigger budget). We have some surprises in store for you all, especially those who didn't make it to this year...

Congratulations everyone, may I inform you all that the Chrysalis has arrived! Technically speaking, it arrived yesterday, and we're going to be working on distributing it across all campuses as soon as possible (like, monday/tuesday depending on how fast the inter-post delivery system is). We've all waited this long but don't worry, it's almost over. For some of you, however, the wait is over as transmountain campus where the books were delivered to and our offices are located (TM Library, RM 1654, downstairs). We were surprised to see some students come and already take their copy of this year's Chrysalis  but rest assured, everyone else, we definitely have enough for everyone. =) I originally wanted to inform you all yesterday, the day of, but I, like probably many of you, took time off my sleep schedule to prepare for class. In this case, Physics was my enemy and a group project was what I lost sleep over. Thankfully, I managed to pass with an 88 and now I...

It's your friendly neighborhood editor again! As we approach finals week in.. well, literally, a week, instructors and professors are clamoring to put in that last test or quiz while those who have done their work prepare for the inevitable and those who haven't... prepare for inevitable. I hope you find yourself in the former category, because for yours truly, mine is a mixed bag. I will easily earn an A in only one class while I can safely say I'll get a B in two more, though the other two will likely be a solid C. Work hard while you're in college, everyone, because if you don't, then what's the point in it? I know I'm biased in that I am a stick in the mud so you should take my advice with a grain of salt, but I live life under the impression that we should do all the hard stuff now- earn a degree, learn, prepare for the future financially, and establish our careers - not jobs - while we're young so we can enjoy a satisfying and happy life in the f...

Hello all! I would like to apologize for my extremely long hiatus. It appears my last post denoting the end of my short R&R period this semester did not quite explain the levity of the situations this year has challenged me with. Let me fill you in what you've been waiting for though--  Chrysalis  info: We've already submitted the Chrysalis  sometime ago to the publishers who have been hard at work turning all your hard work into reality. At this point it's just a waiting game, but do not worry as we chose a very reliable publisher with good turnaround times. I mentioned earlier how we were short-staffed and that hasn't exactly changed. While, thankfully, with the Chrysalis completed and in the process of being printed, we haven't had need of a large staff. Still, an unintended consequence of that has been the delay of "secondary" tasks, such as notifying all users of their acceptance and rejection, cleaning up large swaths of files and organizin...