Our History
Small Craft Warnings is Swarthmore College’s oldest literary magazine. We are a student-run magazine, and we encourage applications to our editorial board on a semesterly basis.
The journal was founded in 1977 by John Alison ’79 and Steven Nicholas Swartz ’78. At its conception it was called The Nulset Review. Some records incorrectly report its former name to be The Null Set Review. As Swartz wrote in the October 2013 Alumni Bulletin, he and his cofounder showed up to a meeting of the previous literary journal and found no editors, no submissions, and no staff. They chose to establish their own publication “ex nihilo,” according to Swartz.
In the fall of 1980, the Nulset name was ousted by our most notable alumnus, Jonathan Franzen ’81. He described the kerfuffle over the new name in the foreword to our Fall 2023 issue. His suggestion for the new name was The Ecliptic, which was accepted by his peers “out of sheer exhaustion.” However, when he was left alone late at night with the design of the issue, he came to dislike it, pivoting to a name proposed by his fellow editor Tom Hjelm: Small Craft Warnings, named for the 1972 play by Tennessee Williams. Franzen served as editor in the fall of 1980 and published multiple works in the journal during his time as a student. He went on to write the critically acclaimed novel The Corrections, for which he was named a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist in 2002.
What We Do
Our mission is to provide Swarthmore’s artists and writers an accessible and free place to publish their work. At the same time, we hold submissions to a high editorial standard, and acceptance into Small Craft Warnings is competitive. We do not charge a submission fee.
We are primarily a print publication. The magazine in its entirety is in print only, and physical copies of each issue are available across campus, free of charge. Pieces published on this website are done so only with the explicit permission of their authors.
Although our editorial board is composed only of students, we welcome submissions from all members of Swarthmore’s community, including alumni, faculty, and staff. We publish prose, poetry, artwork, and photography.
Contributors to Small Craft Warnings have gone on to receive such accolades as the National Book Award and publication in The Paris Review.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.