Writers, poets, painters, musicians and art lovers gathered as Conceptions Southwest, UNM's fine arts and literary magazine, celebrated the release of its 30th issue.
Since 1978, the magazine has served as a creative outlet for the University community.
Clara Boling, Conceptions Southwest editor, said choosing what goes into the magazine is a democratic process.
"The whole staff discussed all of the works and voted on the ones that were published. Nothing art inappropriate went into the magazine, and I did not pass judgment on the pieces unless I was called to - I trusted the judgment of my staff."
Aurore Diehl attended the event after seeing the only featured musician in Conceptions Southwest in 15 years, Devin Ulibarri, perform at Popejoy Hall.
"I attended this event because I know Devin and wanted to support him, and because I wanted to check out the competition in the poetry section of the magazine," she said. "I thought about submitting, but it was too late by the time I had that thought."
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Multiple artists, writers, poets and one musician were published in this year's issue, including Brett Elwell, Sarena Emily Levinson,ˇKarin Jozefowski and Kelly Brocklehurst.
Brocklehurst said she was ecstatic when she found out her poem would be published.
"I was really excited about it, but very nervous to tell my family about it because it is a very personal poem," she said.
Jozefowski, who had a nonfiction piece published in the magazine, said she wrote it about the way her life was during her 20s.
"I lived it, and I wrote it at 33 and looked back on my life," she said. "I realized then that many women during that time in their lives go through the same things that I went through."
Jozefowski said that when she teaches, she wants to be an inspiration to her students to get published as well.
"If I'm going to inspire students to write and then put themselves out there, then I should be able to say that I've done it, too," she said. "It's not fair for me to tell them to do something that I haven't done."
