At the beginning of the second semester, a new group of students filled Micah Susman’s seventh period class and began work on what will become Excalibur, McCallum’s literary magazine. The staff works all semester recruiting artists to submit visual and literary art to be published in the spring. Through advertisement around campus, staff members work to receive as many submissions as possible to create a diverse selection of artwork.

“It’s still pretty early in the year, and the vast majority of our submissions come pretty close to the deadline, which is April 21,” junior Anna Groves said. “The submissions are often from the same people, but it’s all very original and different.”

Junior Lien Chi said though the artists who submit are experienced, the staff this year is almost all new.

“Most people came from [Susman’s] creative writing class,” she said. “We liked his class and teaching method, and in Excalibur he lets us do what we want. He’s a great influence [on the magazine] even though he tries to let us do what we feel is natural but he still has to come in sometimes and tell us what we’re doing wrong because we haven’t been doing this as long as he has.”

Each year the staff has a raffle to give away an Austin City Limits music festival 3-day pass for one of the artists who submits. Chi said the prize greatly affects the submissions.

“It’s our trophy,” Chi said. “It’s how we get most of our submissions because it’s a $120 prize. Members of Excalibur can’t win to keep it fair.”

Groves said the staff has a set system of checks and balances to keep the raffle fair.

“You can’t just submit something that it’s obvious you didn’t try to work on and get in the raffle,” Groves said. “We have a certain grading system, where you have to get a passing grade, which is pretty easy to get, so people don’t have to worry about that.”

Though Excalibur isn’t published until mid-May, students had the opportunity to experience each other’s artistic creations at Coffeehouse on March 28.

“Basically, you go to the library and you get to listen to people at McCallum do performances, mostly music, slam poetry and sometimes comedians,” Groves said. “You get to eat good food and drink coffee, hence the name ‘Coffeehouse.’ It’s just a really chill, cool experience and an excuse to skip eighth period.”

Submissions are being accepted in the library or at [email protected] until April 21.