SandScript 2020

About SandScript
SandScript is the art and literary magazine
of Pima Community College, Tucson, AZ.
SandScript is published annually at the
end of the spring semester. All works of
prose, poetry, and visual art that appear
in SandScript are created by students
attending Pima Community College. The
editorial board consists of Pima students
and a faculty advisor.
SandScript has received the first place
award in the national contest for collegiate
magazines held by the Community College
Humanities Association in 2015, 2016, 2017,
2018, and 2019. The Community College
Humanities Association canceled the
literary magazine competition for 2020,
noting that most community colleges
canceled their magazines for the year.
Students interested in participating on the
editorial staff of SandScript take Literary
Magazine Workshop (WRT 162) in the spring
semester. This course is limited to twelve
students. Student editors, all of whom
have strengths in different art forms, learn
through engaging in the editorial process
with their peers. In 2020, the SandScript
staff moved the magazine’s process into new
territory by reviewing submissions through
a staff-developed anonymous digital voting
form. Each vote for submissions of poetry,
prose, and visual art was followed by an indepth
discussion that took place in person.
When the coronavirus pandemic broke out
in the U.S., the team decided to move to both
our meetings and the magazine to a digital
platform as part of the nationwide effort to
limit personal contact to combat the spread
of the virus. As a result of the chaos suffered
by the students as they moved, lost jobs,
gained jobs, shifted priorities, and learned
how to take courses online, most of the text
in this edition was accepted with only minor
grammatical edits.
Since SandScript was published during
the pressures and limitations of a global
pandemic, the 2020 team had to make many
difficult choices. One of those choices was
to publish an exclusively digital magazine
for the first time in the twenty-seven-year
history of SandScript. Unfortunately, these
new adaptations cost the staff the time
needed to judge and award the traditional
prizes. Although the staff grieved the loss
of the physical publication they’d been
crafting, they moved quickly and decisively
to transfer their work to digital platforms.
Also, due to the Stay-at-Home mandate,
the staff had to cancel the May Unveiling
Ceremony that publicly celebrates Pima’s
student artists for their talent and effort.
Despite these losses, the staff’s flexibility,
innovation, humor, patience, and tender
care for the artistic submissions of their
peers was a breathtaking feat of fellowship.
Their perseverance was an inspiration
during these troubling and uncertain times.
—Faculty Advisor, Frankie Rollins
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