Progenitor Art & Literary Journal  is a national-award-winning collegiate publication that is a cornerstone of Arapahoe Community College's art and literary life. We are located in Littleton, Colorado. 

UPDATE: The deadline for submissions for the following categories has been extended until Friday, February 20th at midnight in hopes of getting higher submission numbers in these genres: 

-Art & Photography

-Creative Nonfiction

-Illustrated Story / 3-Panel comic / Political Cartoon

SUBMISSIONS FOR PROGENITOR 2026, v.61, ARE NOW OPEN (FEB. 3-15, 2026). 

Progenitor Art and Literary Journal, published annually, is the work of three Spring semester courses in which students at our college enroll: 

ENG 2031, Literary Magazine 

JOU 2015, Publications Production and Design 

MGD 2080, Multimedia and Graphic Design Studio

Our submission window is necessarily brief, and usually within the approximate first couple of weeks of February.  

Specific guidelines for each genre are detailed in the category submission area. 

Thank you to all of our submitters! We truly look forward to reading your best, and are honored to have the opportunity to do so. 

Our staff is working hard to curate and design the next high-quality edition of the Progenitor Art and Literary Journal !

Our annual "Release Celebration and Reading" is scheduled to be held on Thursday, May 7th, 2026 beginning at 5:30pm in the Colorado Gallery of the Arts, and open to all. Attendees receive a free copy of the new book.  

Local artists and writers whose works are chosen for publication, aka "Contributors," will be invited to read from their written work or to present their art in person at the event. Contributors in attendance will receive three contributor copies of the new book, and if you can't make the event, we'll mail those. Our ability to mail contributor copies is now limited to "within the US" due increased shipping rates.*

However, we welcome submissions from all over the world. If outside the US, please see the below restrictions in shipping contributor copies.    

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The Progenitor Art & Literary Journal

Each year, our publication sources the best of the best through a blind reading and committee approach. Student status does not influence our selection; indeed, we publish works from amateur and professional writers and artists from all over the world annually. Yet, we highly encourage students at Arapahoe Community College, and within the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), and of all the colleges and universities in Colorado to submit.  

We are honored to accept submissions from our students, the wider communities around Colorado, and all around the globe for our Art & Literary Journal in the genres of Poetry, Short Story (fiction), Flash Fiction, Creative Nonfiction (CNF), Flash Memoir, 10-Minute Plays (drama), Art (all genres considered, e.g. woodworking, paintings, ceramics, digital art not produced by AI, and so on) and Photography, and Illustrated (graphic) Stories and Comics.

The students who serve on the Progenitor staff work to publish the best of the works they are presented with. Their hard work results in the journal published online and in print at the end of the Spring semester. A collaborative effort takes place between our contributors and the editors, who are united in their mission to share stories across mediums—written and visual.

Previously, volume 57 (2022) was awarded an "Honorable Mention" for Best Literary Magazine by the prestigious Pinnacle Awards given by the College Media Association, a national organization widely recognized as the best. We tied for fourth, and appeared to be the only two-year college placing in this national competition! You can still explore our work on this volume below. 

Website for v. 57

You can also check out our beautiful site which flaunts the excellence of our 2019 edition, as well as the website from our 2020 edition. 

Here's the website for our most recent edition: volume 60, the diamond anniversary, created by Ena Boyd. 

The Progenitor Art & Literary Journal has been published each Spring semester at ACC for the past 60 years (including during the onset of the pandemic in Spring of 2020). Our journal publishes the best submissions it receives from ACC students and community members, near and far. Find out more about the Progenitor at our Progenitor Art & Literary Journal website. 

Email progenitor@arapahoe.edu with any questions you may have. 

For the 61st edition, Progenitor is accepting submissions from February 3rd to the 16th, 2026 at midnight, Mountain Standard Time (MST). 

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*International Community: We are disappointed to announce that due to exorbitant shipping costs, we are no longer able to ship "contributor copies" outside of the US. We will still accept your submissions, and we are happy to publish the ones that our staff chooses through our blind review process, but we cannot send you copies of the book. 

We will, however, email you the pdf of the finished product, and you can, if you wish, pay to have books shipped to you. Also, if there are funds unexpectedly remaining, we will attempt to ship you a couple of copies--in short, we will do our best.  

Our sincere apologies for this policy change put into place in 2025.

~Jamey Trotter

Faculty Advisor