Cover of The New Columbia Varsity, December 1923
Cover of The New Columbia Varsity, December 1923
The Varsity Review is a recently revived Columbia publication seeking short- and long-form fiction, poetry, and belletristic essays to fill our inaugural edition. As it stands, the magazine will not be distributed for free like our peer publications, but sold in various campus locations and bookstores throughout the city (and will likely be available online). Writers of any age, professional, or university affiliation are invited to submit work (though the staff consists only of Columbia University affiliates). Feel free to recommend writers and students for us to reach out to as well. Please don't submit anything written for class (with an exception for fiction); refrain from cliché; don't use AI (obviously); write something new and honest and interesting. The Varsity Review exists to publish work that doesn't fit within the coterie limits of existing undergraduate publications, but to push the creative, aesthetic, and intellectual limits of students' art and ideas.
If you are interested in publishing your work in the upcoming issue, please send a finished piece, a couple of poems, or pitch (with examples of your work) here by November 16th: submit@varsityreview.com.
If you are interested in joining the staff of the Varsity, please email with your name, major, age, school, interests, favorite novel, and favorite publication (past or present) by November 16th. You will be invited to chat with the staff if you seem like a fit: contact@varsityreview.com.
The Varsity Review, also known as The Varsity, preceded The Columbia Review. Lionel Trilling, John Dewey, Jacques Barzun, Mark Van Doren, are a few of the storied scholars, writers, and students who contributed in the 1920s-30s. In a catholic fashion, they published pieces both highbrow and lowbrow, poetry and prose, from various members of the Columbia community.
The mission of today's Varsity Review is much the same as it was then: "The charge has been squarely made... that undergraduates have no innate love of good writing, no spontaneous eagerness to express themselves.... We do not believe this. We hope that the men [and now, women] of the college will refute it. They cannot refute by subscribing, for their individual copies are already guaranteed them. They can refute, however, by contributing to the magazine the best writing they can do.... Do they accept the challenge?"