History

The Cellar Door, UNC's undergraduate literary magazine, was founded by undergrads Lee Harris and Vince Kopp back in the early 1970s.

To quote the twentieth-anniversary issue, published during the university's bicentennial in 1994: "The Cellar Door has managed to survive from 1973 to the present day--a remarkable life for a student-run publication. It has faded out as times, but it has endured, providing successful writers such as Jill McCorkle with their first oppportunities for publication. And for the many students who have served on its staff, the Cellar Door has been not merely a magazine but the heart of a literary community."

It has also provided valuable practical experience in the challenges and pleasures of producing a first-rate little magazine. Some of its staff and contributors have gone on to work in the publishing world--Will Blythe was literary editor at Esquire for many years--and others have gone on to publish their own books of fiction and poetry, including Jenny Offill, author of the collection of short stories Last Things (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999).

In recent years, the Cellar Door has appeared twice during each academic year. From the hundreds of stories and poems submitted each fall and spring, the staff and editors usually publish 15 to 20 poems and 4 to 6 works of prose. Several thousand copies of the magazine are printed and distributed free of charge across the Carolina campus.

- Michael McFee, former Faculty Advisor