Find out more about our mission and our team!
Our Mission
Semitas is the Latin word for “paths.” We at Semitas Magazine desire our publication to be part of the journey, the path, for writers. We particularly aim to support the works of emerging writers and those seeking that first publishing opportunity. As a magazine, we want writers to view us as a stepping stone to further publications and a motivation to continue the writerly journey, whatever form it may take. We believe in the value of every voice. In fact, we welcome those who don’t consider themselves writers to submit their writing, to take a chance and realize that, just maybe, people are interested in what they have to say too. It is our belief that by providing a space for such writers to share their work, we will enrich the world with unique voices and perspectives that might otherwise go unheard. As such, we encourage everyone to submit and take a chance on their writing.
Our Team
Rose Kottwitz
Meet our Editor-in-Chief, Rose Kottwitz! Rose is a senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln majoring in English with minors in Business and Digital Humanities. She has worked as a writing consultant at the university’s Writing Center since 2019 and joined Laurus, the undergraduate literary magazine on campus, as an editor in 2020. The motivation for the creation of this literary magazine began with her involvement in the Honors Program at the university. All Honors students are required to complete a senior project, but rather than write a traditional thesis paper, Rose chose to craft a project that reflected her passions. And so, Semitas Magazine was born. It is her hope that this magazine will prove to be a venue for sharing a wide range of works from a diverse group of emerging writers. At Semitas, we want you—whoever you are—to feel comfortable sharing your writing and taking that exciting step of making it available to the public.
Dr. Pascha Sotolongo Stevenson
Meet our Editorial Assisstant and Faculty Mentor, Dr. Pascha Sotolongo Stevenson! Dr. Stevenson is a Latinx fiction writer and college English teacher who was born and raised in Florida but dreams of Cuba. Given to surrealism, her writing explores themes of poverty, isolation, longing, and invisibility. Her short story “The Moth” won Ninth Letter’s Literary Award for Fiction, and many of her stories have been named finalists for prizes including: the Ploughshares Emerging Writers Prize, the American Short(er) Fiction Prize, the Lamar York Fiction Prize, the Robert and Adele Schiff Award in Fiction, and the Writers Digest Short Short Fiction Prize. Her CNF essay “Spanish Girls” won the Salem College Penelope Niven Award in Creative Nonfiction. Currently, she is finishing a short story collection, planning a novel, and writing a memoir about her behemoth student loan debt and attending college with (yes, at the same time and on the same campus as) her parents.
Semitas Magazine 