FINALLY: Arthur’s under new management. For real this time.

Editors David King, Louanne Morin, and Ian Vansegbrook and occupational head and safety inspector Evan Robins have spent the summer locked in the Arthur office, learning the ropes in preparation for Issue 0. From the exhilarating fights over videogames to the tedium of filing paperwork, this summer has been a real trial-by-fire for our beloved Gang of Four. 

Who knew a work family could be three beautiful transsexuals and Ian?

Autofellatio aside, we’re looking to YOU to help populate the pages of our first print edition since our printers went bust in January. We’ve had longer dry spells, honestly, but we need your thoughts, opinions, gripes, and diatribes to really make this edition unforgettably wet ‘n’ wild. 

For those new here, Arthur is a well-established thorn in the side of Trent University, and plays a necessary role in holding the institutions that govern the Peterborough landscape to task. We also swear, show a tasteful bit of cheek, and tell it as it is. As much as we’re all about having fun, we’ve long known how student voices and perspectives can light a great fire under the ass of The Man.

Issue 0 is the inaugural issue of Arthur’s publishing year. It’s a celebration of our summer’s work while allowing those old and new to Trent and Arthur to enjoy a little taste of the year to come.

You’ve been intently watching this #space as the three of us and our plus one let our freak flags fly all summer, so why not join in? Our first issue is a great opportunity for everyone to contribute to letting Arthur’s collective freak flag fly.

Arthur’s been around for 60 volumes now. That’s a lot! In that time we’ve seen hundreds of articles, staff, and editors come through Arthur’s revolving doors since its conception in 1966. We’re hyper aware of how much responsibility the cultural institution of Arthur comes with, but we are so excited to share this milestone with you. We love this little paper and its 60 years of university drama, cultural criticism, and documenting mayors uttering threats and slurs. 

Not everything in our humble rag is straight, hard journalism though! Your quest, should you accept it, will be to contribute anything with words, pictures, or obscenenity. Sky’s the limit, but we do have some guidelines to assist you in what and why you should submit to Arthur this August. 

We strive to be as low-barrier and open-access as possible, and a big part of Arthur is making ourselves accessible to new and aspiring writers. We truly believe that writers and contributors like you are the lifeblood of this paper, this university, and the City in which she/they resides.‍

What should I submit?

• News: If you know of a story the community should care about, why not write about it? News stories are timely, relevant, and informational, and include (but are not limited to) event coverage, interviews, and other coverage of local interest. Try to focus on things which are topical and which have yet to receive extensive coverage elsewhere. News stories should be approximately 1000 words.
• Opinion: Our opinion section is your pulpit to speak your personal truth and share it with the world. If you’re keen to infect the minds of the public, Arthur is as good a place to do it as any. Op-eds should be a minimum of 600 words, but who are we to stop you there?
  
  • Letters. A specific subsection of opinion piece consisting largely of yelling directed towards the editors and/or your peers and/or some hapless institution. Letters to the editors can express a general opinion, as in an op-ed, or respond to a story previously published in Arthur. Letters should be no more than 600 words, though we’ll permit longer screeds should we be feeling generous.
• Culture: The gay cousin of a Cultural Studies seminar, Culture writing can be anything topical that seeks to editorialize or analyze than it is about straightforwardly reproducing facts. Think film reviews, personal essays, recipes, and Buzzfeed-esque lifestyle pieces. This is art that life imitates, as opposed to being art which imitates life. The genre also permits for a more fulsome engagement with your subject matter. With Culture pieces, you have up to 1200 words to work with—and more (at our editorial discretion) if necessary. 
• Sports: Most of our editors are hopelessly inept at all forms of physical activity, so why not pick up the slack and give our sports section some love? Attend a Trent game that you want to tell your peers about? Have some cutting analysis of a given sporting event’s relationship to Peterborough/Canada/the World? Just want to opine at length about why you love your favourite sport in a more esoteric way than everyone else? We’ll happily give you 1000 words to do it.
• Bowlcut: Think you can make us, the notoriously stoic editors of that most serious institution which is Arthur, laugh? The Bowlcut is the place to do it. Taking its name from the eponymous haircut which christened Arthur, The Bowlcut is a place for humour, satire, and also parody. Stories should be irreverent, clever, witty, and marginally offensive so as to tiptoe up to (but not over) the line of obscenity. Oh, yeah, and ideally they should be about 900 words.
• Literally anything else: Don’t see something here that you think you could write? Talk to us! Arthur has always encouraged all manner of depravity, experimentation, and writerly weirdness. Some of the things Arthur has historically published include (but are not limited to) film reviews; poetry; sex advice; short fiction; photography; art; personal essays; horoscopes; personal ads; and softcore pornography!
  Be the change you wish to see in the world and help us expand this list! We’re open to publishing all manner of things in good or poor taste regardless of how irreverent, wrongheaded, or raunchy. Just drop us a line at our email below.

Why should you submit?

• It gets you published: Arthur is, despite our best efforts, a pretty legitimate and well-respected masthead—we’ve got the awards to prove it! Being published in Arthur not only gives you the satisfaction of having something to hang on your mom's refrigerator or gloat about on your Instagram story, but also the opportunity to do the professional equivalent of both those things: put it on your resume!
  Whether you’re trying to diversify an existing portfolio, or have yet to start one and are getting real antsy about the upcoming deadline to apply to that Creative Writing MFA, we have the platform to help get your work published, and we’re more than happy to help you expand your horizons.

• It gives you experience working with editors. Even if you already maintain a Substack, a Letterboxd account, a personal blog, or another sort of personal writing repository, submitting to Arthur provides the opportunity to receive tangible feedback and work directly with people who care about your work and helping you improve.
  All pieces go through a rigorous, objective copy editing process, and we strive wherever possible to offer feedback to all contributors.
• It’s a part of a larger community. Whether you’re new to Trent and trying to find your place, or a veteran Patcher (Peterboroughian? Peter-er?) looking for more like-minded people in your program, Arthur is a great place to start. We like to joke that Arthur is a family (NOT A UNION-BUSTING TACTIC) but what is a family if not a cultivated community?
  Something Arthur has always been good at is bringing people together. Whether in the pages of our letters section, or around the table at our story meetings, Arthur fosters an interpersonal connection that is integral to the university experience. All of us have forged fiery friendships through our work at Arthur, and we hope to empower successive legacies of acolytes to do the same.
• You own (1/10,000th) of our asses. That’s right, $14.64 of your tuition goes to buying your way into equal ownership of this publication. Technically, this makes us accountable to you, a fact which you should leverage by getting involved.
  It also means that, in the abstract, you contribute to a portion of Arthur’s operations, and therefore the paper exists as much for you as it does for all other levy-paying members. It is—in the most literal sense—your student newspaper, so why not take advantage of the perks of ownership?

Sold? Amazing! Take up the sword and get the fruits of your labour to us by 11:59 PM on August 1st, 2025. We will do our best to help you get in print!

Want to submit, but not sure what to write or what exactly the word “libel” means? Email editors@trentarthur.ca with the subject line "I Want to Submit to Issue 0" or drop by Office 104 at Sadleir House to hash it out with the editors. Our door is always figuratively open even if it is not always literally open, because we do play terrible dogshit music and argue very loudly. 

Happy writing,

David, Louanne, Ian & Evan

V60 Summer Staff