By: Anne Nelson | Publish Date: Nov 2, 2026
Kean’s creative students have been looking for a place to formally share their creative works and media with fellow students for a long time. This passion has led to realization with the thanks to some students taking initiative, making the opportunity available to all Kean students through Kean’s relaunched literary magazine, Blank Slate.
Blank Slate has persisted since the 1970s, although it went by different names through the years. The magazine has had a bumpy history with trying to stay active since it was largely a volunteer effort. The last time it was revived was Fall 2021 as the Blank Slate Collective by students that were inducted into Sigma Tau Delta, after the magazine had previously fell through before covid. However, it couldn’t continue into Fall 2022 due to not getting an “advisor on board at that time,” according to Ava Camargo, one of Blank Slate Collective’s fiction editors that officially received her Writing Studies master’s early Spring 2026.
In the spring of 2026, the process of reviving Blank Slate began once again as a volunteer effort thanks to the voices of the original editors.
“I wanted the Blank Slate to be revised as a way for students to have access to art by students on campus!” said Alyssa Rivers, a graduate in Writing Studies and editor on Blank Slate. “I also wanted them to be inspired enough to submit to the Blank Slate. During my undergrad, applying to journals outside of my school, I yearned for a closer resource. I thought to myself, why not have a hand in curating that myself? Thus, the idea to revive the Blank Slate came to be and I’m so glad it did!”
While reviving Blank Slate was a volunteer effort from various seniors and some current graduate students who wanted experience, “It [also] was a whole English department effort,” explained Abriana Jette, one of the faculty advisors on Blank Slate and is Fall 2026 instructor. “We recognize the potential of Kean students’ writing and want[ed] to give it a platform.”
The process began with getting permission from Dean Casale and Jan Balakian, the previous faculty advisors of Blank Slate, to continue with the magazine. Then, a group of professors essentially hand-selected students that they knew would take up the challenge of relaunching Blank Slate, had previously expressed interest in helping out, or voiced that they were looking for opportunities to become editors.
One of the original editors that were selected was Sarah Rosales, an alumnus of Kean’s Communication and English Department who graduated last semester. Jette reached out to Rosales via email while she was taking Jette’s Introduction to Poetry class. Rosales already had an interest in publishing formally and was passionate about working in an environment that would foster student writing, so she joined.
“I knew in the time that I worked with the Blank Slate, I wouldn’t be able to see a lot of student submissions get published, but I hope[d] that when I left that many students will see the place as a spot to share their work,” said Rosales. “Personally, the work I [had] done with the Blank Slate taught me what it meant to work on an editorial board and how a university student-run press could operate, no matter how small. The leadership skills I fostered there were ones I brought into my current editorial internship.”
Rosales acknowledged that it was a lot of work volunteering on Blank Slate on top of her job and classes. This labor was one of Jette’s main concerns when relaunching Blank Slate.
“It’s a lot of work to run a literary magazine, so it needed to be accredited” explained Jette.
Starting this semester, Blank Slate has managed to officially become a required 3-credit course that is embedded in the new English writing major program, cementing Blank Slate’s existence in the English department in a way that it can’t slip away again.
If any non-English majors are interested in taking this course, Jette hopes that they will reach out to her.
“Everybody in the English department wants to broaden their community and welcome students who feel like they might not know how they fit but often thought about running a magazine or reading submissions or being a part of some literary culture,” said Jette. She can be contacted at abjette@kean.edu.
In fact, Blank Slate’s current team hopes that its future editors come from diverse fields and backgrounds to shape the journal’s identity through their expertise.
Jette voiced that she also hoped that Blank Slate would be taught by different faculty members, including ones from Jersey City, every year to encourage such diversity and new perspectives. She has begun implementing this by having Blank Slate’s other faculty advisors, such as Chris Friend and Christina Mastroeni, step into the class to give advice on the website design and business side of a literary magazine. Through this, Blank Slate’s team hopes to redefine what a literary journal can be for undergraduate students.
Students from the English department, both current and past, have high hopes for Blank Slate’s relaunch and revamp.
“It’s a positive thing to have a student journal dedicated to creative work,” said Sarah Singh, a graduate student in Writing Studies who was recently published in Blank Slate for winning last year’s Flash Fiction contest. “It’s nice that students can get class credit for participating. Having a professor set strict deadlines on everything helps with running a tight ship, which is harder to do with just a club.”
“I think it’s great that [Blank Slate has] become more ingrained in the English major experience,” Camargo added. “It sounds like it’ll create a hands-on experience for students to gain insight into editing and anthologizing. When I was part of it, overall outreach and getting the group off the ground was a bit difficult in terms of garnering interest. So, I hope this revamped version of it continues to foster interest, learning, and creativity.”
Kevin Caffrey, one of the new editors at Blank Slate who majors in English Writing, wants students to know that their voice and opinions matter as writers.
“Even if [students] feel shaky as a writer, I want them to never feel shaky as a human being with things to say that deserve to be heard,” said Caffrey. “It’s important that students have a space to express themselves and be taken seriously as writers.”
Currently, Blank Slate is open for submissions and accepts prose, poetry, and visual art/media. All submissions to Blank Slate are read blind by its editorial team, since they are sent straight to Jette, who removes names from submissions if they are included. For more information, visit keanblankslate.com or email blankslate@kean.edu.
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