The first issue of The Mockingbird appeared in the spring of 1974; it began months earlier, when the English Department chair, John Tallent, assigned the task of faculty advisor to Robert J. Higgs. The Mockingbird received additional funding and support from Dan Teis, the Art Department chair at the time. The Mockingbird, however, has always been a student publication; its editorial staffs, art staffs, and contributors must be ETSU students. The magazine has, therefore, provided an outlet for the creative talents and applied skills they have developed at ETSU.
The Mockingbird has gone a couple of significant changes in only the past few years. In 2004, under the leadership of art advisor Val Lyle, The Mockingbird began to accept digital submissions of any kind of art, permitting the magazine to expand its content beyond conventional two-dimensional graphic work to include metalsmithing, sculpting, and other forms of three-dimensional art. Beginning in the 2008 issue, The Mockingbird began to accept short dramatic pieces as literary submissions. We hope this website will prove to be another significant expansion of The Mockingbird.
We regret that technological limitations prevent our being able to offer complete issues prior to our 2010/2011 issue of The Mockingbird online. In particular, we are not able to offer reproductions of the older published art in a manner that those works deserve. However, one can access a site dedicated to The Mockingbird art offered by the ETSU Art Department. In our archives, you can access key prize winners from our past. Please be patient--there is a lot of material to upload, and we are working as quickly as we can.
We invite all currently enrolled ETSU students to consider submitting literary work to The Mockingbird. Download an entry form here.