Submissions to The Muse from graduating Cornellians are accepted at any time. Submissions should be sent to submit(at)cornell-muse(dot)com attached as a Word document. While multiple submissions will be accepted, the editors reserve the right to only publish one piece per author.

If you would like to be added to our mailing list as a potential contributor and receive occasional updates and reminders (no commitment necessary!), fill out the form in the "Contact Us" section.

After submitting a piece, contributors should expect to hear from an Associate Editor within the following weeks to discuss their work and to go over any stylistic or grammar changes that may be suggested by the editor.

Potential contributors are highly encouraged to attend informational meetings held by The Muse's staff every semester where they can meet with the staff, learn more about the publication, and bounce their ideas off of the editors. Dates for these meetings will be posted on this website as they are announced.

Please continue reading below for more information on the motivation and philosophy behind The Muse...


The Muse is a student-run publication that seeks submissions from graduating seniors pertaining to their experiences at Cornell University. While offerings of poetry will be accepted and reviewed, it is expected that most entries will be in prose format, taking the form of memoirs, recalled stories, or essays regarding seniors’ time on the Hill and what they will take away, personally, from the university. The publication is meant to be therapeutic and uplifting for the Cornell community at large - allowing graduating seniors to recollect and bring closure to their time at Cornell, while informing underclassmen of the vast diversity of experience that takes place at Cornell.

Moreover, the publication seeks to promote the entirety of student experiences here at Cornell: from Engineers to Architects, Aggies to Hotelies, Greeks to independents, student athletes to students who spent their entire four years in the lab - and, of course, everybody in between.

Anybody who would like to take some time to reflect and write about their experiences at Cornell is highly, highly encouraged to submit to The Muse. We feel that to only sponsor the experiences of one ‘type’ of student at Cornell would be a disservice to the incredible range of students and experiences that exist at Cornell University, an institution which is intensely proud of its diversity in all of its myriad forms.

Potential authors who are interested in some sort of guidance as to what type of content we are looking for should understand that there is no one set mold. It is expected that entries will discuss and draw upon an incredibly wide range of topics. Some examples might include; how a certain class/professor changed your outlook on life, how one has a particularly affinity for taking long walks in the gorges at night, how the homesickness you first felt when arriving as a freshmen was soon replaced by an intense love for the city of Ithaca, how the summer you spent at Cornell doing research was the best summer ever, how the friends you made in your freshmen dorm defined your experience at Cornell, a poetic ode to the Hot Truck, or how living in a fraternity/sorority house established long lasting bonds.

But by no means should one be limited by these suggestions - the sky is the limit!

Entries could be intensely personal, touching upon the lasting bonds of friendship that have been forged on East Hill, or rather abstract, speculating on the nature of Ezra’s university on a hill at the dawn of the 21st century. Humor is not discouraged. If there is any guiding principle to the submissions we seek to publish is that they should offer some insight into the nature and diversity of the Cornell experience(s).

Entries that touch upon or highlight the negative aspects of this institution are expected, if not encouraged, but we would like to remind potential contributors that submissions should ultimately offer something constructive or positive about one’s experiences at Cornell. This publication is not intended to be a collection of rants, raves, or confessions, but rather a thoughtful compilation of student experience and associated retrospection.

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"The writing seminar was entitled “Reading the Body” and focused on how the human body is portrayed in literature. We read a number of works (including Lolita) about the relationship between the body and sickness, sexuality, and nature — how the human body can be transformed into a literary work. Hence, when our teacher had a seizure during his reading, he became a physical manifestation of the subject matter of the class. Not to mention it was just plain bizarre."

- Chelsea Finn & Michael Van Wert, "A Writing Seminar of Ep(ilepti)c Proporortions" (2005)