The Tusculum Review, an international print literary journal based at Tusculum University in Greeneville, Tennessee, is offering a paid illustration query for students.
They’re commissioning 2-3 artists (students or recent graduates) to:
- Illustrate a poetry chapbook
- Feature the prexisting work of in their issue
- Create an original cover for the issue.
For the past five years, they’ve featured the work of elite art students from across the country and the world: Daeja Sutherland and Amuri Morris in our 2026 issue, Volume 21; Ayla Bramblett in 2025—Amuri and Ayla both VCU grads.
Interested students can email a link to their portfolio: ktrom@tusculum.edu.
They pay $800 for the chapbook illustrations, which will apear both in the journal issue (circulation: 600) and as a stand-alone limited edition of 200 copies. They feature prexisting art and an artist’s narrative for $300. Original cover for $300.
This year’s prize winning poetry chapbook by Penda Mbaye Z. Smith is a knockout, selected from almost 500 contest entries and praised by final judge Nate Marshall as: “A beautiful collection of poems in the intellectual tradition of Black women thinkers like Christina Sharpe, Saidiya Hartman, and others. These poems sing of the sweetness and sting of Black girlhood and sexuality from the Maafa to the modern.”
The chapbook illustrator would need a track record of depicting Black female figures and work primarily in traditional studio media, using digital tools only minimally, for touch-ups. For the featured pre existing work and issue cover, they’re also interested only in art of all dimensions in traditional media: drawing, painting, sculpture, fiber art, printmaking, etc.
They buy only first serial publication rights for the chapbook illustrations and journal cover, so rights return to the artist two months after our journal launches on November 19. The artist sends them high-quality photographs of their work, retaining the originals. They celebrate the artist at their annual launch. Last year, chapbook artist Daeja Sutherland came from New York.
