By Jessie Kuenzel
Staff Writer

Sharing your work can be hard. You’ve spent countless hours pouring your heart into these pieces of art or writing, and the thought of submitting them for judgment is a daunting prospect.

But for most of us, the only prospect scarier than sharing your work is the thought of it sitting unnoticed and unappreciated in a dark shoebox under the bed or hidden in a distant computer file. If not to share with others, why do we take the time to take our creative thoughts from our minds and bring them into reality?

I know that submitting to “Sidelines” can be a daunting thought if you’ve never done it before, or if you’ve had pieces that weren’t accepted in the past, but really there is no reason not to—especially this year.

For the first time, “Sidelines” has decided to use a theme for the magazine, which will definitely make it easier for artists to take the leap and submit.

This year’s theme is “home”—which is wide open for artist interpretation—and this slightly narrowed field make it a lot easier to pick which pieces to send it. It lessens, at least in part, that panic-inducing moment where you have to look at your entire body of work and decide which you’re going to share.

There’s no denying that sometimes it’s scary to open yourself up to scrutiny, especially when it’s something so personal, but the lovely staff of “Sidelines” have nothing but the best of intentions. All the work that is submitted is stripped of all identifying information, so that when it’s time for the staff to pick which pieces will ultimately go into the magazine no one knows whose work is whose.

Of course there is always a chance that—although your piece(s) are surely amazing—you won’t be published, but if you don’t submit anything you definitely won’t be. “Sidelines” wouldn’t exist without the support of the wonderful and talented Simmons community; “Sidelines” wants you.

What have you got to lose?