The Inkslinger, Darlington’s literary art magazine, contains student art, photography and writing. All submissions to the magazine are voluntary and the best pieces are chosen. The theme for this year was “What We Left Behind” which was a way to reference the end of a decade and pay respects to the things of our past such as people or places. 

The Crown is an award given by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and awarded to different areas of journalism. It is a very competitive national award, with over a thousand submissions and only 64 were selected for our category and 24 were selected for print lit mags. 

“I knew Crown announcements were coming out but I couldn’t remember if we submitted the Inkslinger for a Crown award or a CSPA critique, so it was completely off my mind. Until a friend of mine sent a message congratulating me on the award and I replied saying ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’” media arts adviser Katie Merritt said. This is the first Crown for any publication Merritt has advised.

“We had been anticipating the decision for a while after being the highest scoring Lit Mag for small schools in Georgia, we had really high hopes of receiving a Crown,” Inkslinger editor-in-chief Alexander Greene said. 

He received the news via email. “Ms. Merritt actually emailed me and I thought it was a joke. It was after practice and I was so convinced it was a prank, that I went and checked if CSPA had tweeted it and I immediately called Chloe [Duck] and told her.”

In March, Inkslinger staffers and other journalism students will be traveling to New York for what is the final round where they find out if they received a gold or silver crown.