By Maya Nalawade The Kindergarten Teacher, a 2018 film starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, brings up an essential question for any parent, teacher, or mentor. How sh...

By Daniel Boyko, Hannah Ramsey, Yong-Yu Huang, and Lara Katz Yong-Yu Huang: Polyphony gives you the chance not only to read brilliant pieces from teen writer...

By Pauline Paranikas and Yong-Yu Huang Polyphony commentary is almost like a clay mug. There are many different styles and ways to make them, but they all co...

By Zoha Arif I ate a popsicle today -- blue raspberry, thank you for asking -- on the school bus because I felt like it even though, in retrospect, it is a p...

So… Life is weird right now. If you’re like us, school has been cancelled and you’re sitting at home working through whatever online learning looks like for ...

By Daniel Boyko and Zoha Arif It is a universal consensus that writing dialogue is a trial—a detestation on its own—and one of those elements of writing that...

By Jessica Kim [In conjunction with “Editing a Piece That Frustrates You”.] Grammarly is indeed a lifesaver. It corrects “response for” to “response to” and...

By Daniel Boyko, Jennifer Wang, and Jessica Sidrak As much as editors seem to be attracted to using large vocabulary words—often words that aren’t used in ev...

By Sarah Nachimson, Nayu Shimo, and Yong-Yu Huang Grammarly would make my life so much easier. Maybe I should just plug this piece in for a quick edit. This ...

By Hannah Ramsey, Daniel Boyko, and Sarah Nachimson Hannah Ramsey: Figurative Language I appreciate when writers use metaphors, symbolism, allusions, and oth...

By Sally Park and Nishka Dalmia (Nishka) ‘Creative non-fiction’ is a paradox in itself. While people tend to think that creative necessarily implies using of...

By Lara Katz For some editors, opening submission manager and seeing the genre listed as “fiction” strikes fear deep into their hearts. Maybe it’s because fi...

By Daniel Boyko, Jennifer Wang, and Zoha Arif Some people eat paper. Some prefer poetry, others eat prose, and some are on a more diverse diet of both poetry...

By Giancarlo Riccobon, Vivien Song, Zoha Arif, Jessica Sidrak, and Maya Nalawade While it would be nice to think of us editors as fearless knights of literat...

By Zoha Arif ***First and foremost, you must address this piece as “A Manifesto from Lord Bob” as that is its rightful title, but the editors wouldn’t publis...

By Daniel Boyko and Pauline Paranikas One of the biggest parts of being a Genre Editor is providing feedback to previous editors. Writing that feedback almos...

By Lara Katz If we’re being honest about it, there are three types of Polyphony submissions: submissions that are so terrible it’s hard to find something goo...

By Yong-Yu Huang, Jessica Kim, Jennifer Wang, and Zoha Arif Yong-Yu: I wish that I had known how tall and wobbly the fence would be––I’ve found that a piece ...

For some editors, opening Submission Manager and seeing the genre listed as “fiction” strikes fear deep into their hearts. Maybe it’s because fiction pieces ...

Your commentary is written. Your feedback to previous readers is done. All you need to do is forward the submission. You click “recommend reject,” certain of...