Authors published in this semester’s edition of “Cardinal Sins” celebrated their achievements last Tuesday.

Vanguard Photo | Sean Dudley

Nathan Phillips, secondary education freshman, reads his first-place creative nonfiction piece, “The House of Light and Dark.” The piece won him $100 and recognition for achievement in the publication for the creative nonfiction category.

The post-publication party brought about 30 guests to showcase selected works and unveil the new issue.

The editorial staff did a blind vote to choose which student, faculty and staff works were published in the magazine.

“It’s always a difficult process,” said Emily Krueger, editor-in-chief.

Works were submitted in early fall with eight categories, including black and white art and photography, color art and photography, creative nonfiction, short fiction, flash fiction and poetry.

“We had less artwork [submissions this year], but perhaps more written than usual,” Kruger said. “I think we had 120 poems submitted.”

Large-print versions of the winners’ pieces in each art and photography category were displayed throughout the Robert Allen Reading Room during the reception.

Artists had the opportunity to speak about their selected pieces.

Some authors read their work to give a voice to their written words.

Nathan Phillips, secondary education freshman, read his winning creative nonfiction piece, “The House of Light and Dark,” which detailed living in South Africa.

Phillips took a three-week missionary trip to South Africa where he spent eight  hours per day in townships performing tasks such as building churches.

“I had read about it and developed an affinity for it,” Phillips said.

Another winner, D. Scott Edwards, an English and communication theater postgraduate read his piece, entitled, “Side Effects.”

This was Edwards’ first time submitting work to “Cardinal Sins.”

He received his bachelor’s degree in creative writing and for a period after graduation found himself with writer’s block.

“I knew a couple of people who submitted in the past,” Edwards said. “And they had hounded me to submit for a long time.”

Inspired when listening to a drug commercial on the car radio at four in the morning, Edwards wrote his piece about how people use pills to escape their own humanity.

“It’s true we look at pharmacies for answers. We ask them to do everything for us,” he said.

His writing process began playing with the words “miracle drug,” which led him to creating the fictional Penetrol, a drug with several out of the ordinary side effects.

Edwards plans to write his idea for a play over the semester break.

Krueger expects more submissions in the winter semester.

“I’m looking forward to seeing peoples’ great submissions next semester,” Krueger said.

The deadline to submit for the next issue of Cardinal Sins is Feb. 3. For more information, visit svsu.edu/cardinalsins.