Many events all over the globe have been cancelled this year, but production of RiPPLE, the Kingston University student anthology of creative writing, is going ahead as usual.
Moreover, its Managing Editor and MA Publishing student Catherine Liney thinks the pandemic has actually helped students to free their imagination even more.
“I think it has been a great time for people to be creative because they’re stuck at home and there is nothing much else to do,” Liney said.
RiPPLE showcases art and written pieces submitted by students in the first part of the academic year.
“This year we are getting quite a few submissions, the bulk of them tend to come in towards the end of the deadline, so we are still waiting for a fair few, but we’ve still got almost two weeks – the deadline is 6 December,” Liney said.
RiPPLE is being put together by KU MA Publishing students. The production of the anthology starts in January after the submission deadline. About 25-30 pieces are selected each year by a judging team. A single student can submit up to three creative pieces.
“The production of it hasn’t quite started yet, but I don’t think much will change with coronavirus around, except for the fact that a lot of the meetings have to be online instead of in person,” Liney said.
The only change in the approach to the anthology this year is that, unlike previous years, there will be no specific topic that students have to focus on when putting their creative pieces together.
“We decided as a team very early on not to have a theme this year because we wanted to open the anthology to as many people as possible,” Liney said.
However, to boost submissions the RiPPLE team has set up a competition where students can write from a series of five given prompts and compete for a prize that will be revealed later.
RiPPLE 2021 will be available on Amazon. Get last year’s edition here.
Learn more about submitting your pieces for RiPPLE here.
Amelia Jones 
Hermione Marszalek