Cellar Roots is a literary and fine arts magazine at Eastern Michigan University that publishes a variety of student artwork each year.
Current Editor-in-Chief of Cellar Roots Sydney Keenan is graduating in April, and sophomore Ameera Salman will be taking over the position beginning in January.
"In high school, I personally did slams, like poetry slams, and I had my work published in our literary magazine, so I was really excited when I found out that this existed," Salman said.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most EMU students aren't aware of Cellar Roots, as the club hasn't published a print edition of the magazine since 2019. The new Cellar Roots team wants to change that.
"I think in the last few years there's been just a lull, you know COVID, art hasn't really been in anyone's forefront," Salman said. "For me, I love art and I've always been an artist and I came into this like I'm not pursuing art as a career and so I think that I still find it really valuable to still do it almost every day just for myself."
This year, Keenan and Salman have the goal to release last year's edition as soon as possible and host events to sell old editions, bring more awareness to the club, and hold performances and release parties so students can hear and see other students' work.
"Whether you're choosing to do art as a career or it's just a passion or a hobby, I really wanna see people celebrating their art, expressing it. I want people to be able to be published even if their not gonna like survive off of the money that they make from being published," Salman said.
The submission window for this edition is currently open for students. Cellar Roots normally takes submissions during the fall semester and begins to design the edition at the beginning of the winter semester to release at the end of the year.
Cellar Roots is also always looking for students to join the editing and graphic design teams.
"I just want people to know that it exists, that we're back," Salman said. "I really wanna get us back on the map and we can't do that without people submitting, without artists, and I think that we have a lot of great both art students studying art and just artists in general on campus, so I would love to see what their work is like and see them put it forward."
To become a part of the club, students can visit Cellar Roots on Eagle Sync or follow the club's Instagram @cellar.roots.
