Encouraging, supporting, and enhancing the literary arts on campus and beyond.
Enjoy expressions of writing and art.
Current IssueExplore
Enrich
Enjoy
Current Issue
November 2025
Vol. 41, No. 1
Revving up and shifting into top gear, The MacGuffin takes the first lap of volume 41 with the asemic art of Gregory Stump. Poet Liz Marlow returns to our pages via different terrain with “Rosa Leaves Kyiv on a Riverboat,” and after riding with Andrew Collard’s “Coffee Truck,” we get out on a hike with Dixie Partridge. Intimated by Tina Tocco’s narrative recipe “Results May Vary,” this issue’s prose selections mix together disparate characters into a rich minestrone served up by head chefs Andrew Nickerson, Angie Curneal Palsak, and Alina Zollfrank, with musical accompaniment from Ryan Bender-Murphy.
The MacGuffin, established in 1984, is a national literary magazine created on campus. The journal is a 160-page, 6-inch by 9-inch perfect-bound collection of poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, and visual art, including black and white photos, prints and drawings. Our MacGuffin is published three times per year.
The mission of The MacGuffin is to encourage, support, and enhance the literary arts in the Schoolcraft College community, the region, the state, and the nation. By fulfilling its role as a national literary journal, The MacGuffin brings national and international prestige to Schoolcraft College. It is our main vehicle for our contribution to literary excellence.
What’s a MacGuffin?
The moving force (and sometimes the solution) of a work of mystery fiction is referred to as a MacGuffin, a concept that originated in Victorian England.
Alfred Hitchcock used the term and said, “No film is complete without a MacGuffin because that’s what everybody is after.” The MacGuffin might be the papers everyone is looking for or the ring that was stolen — in short, the MacGuffin is any device or gimmick that gets a plot rolling. The MacGuffin itself has little, if any, fundamental importance, and, according to Hitchcock, is nothing in and of itself.
The MacGuffin’s Purposes
The MacGuffin’s aims to…
- Provide opportunities for hands-on literary publication work experience.
- Sponsor annual literary events.
- Give a voice to deserving newer writers, by publishing their work alongside those of well-known writers.
- Provide a vehicle for writers to share their works with a diverse readership.
- Provide an opportunity for writers to experiment and innovate.
- Attempt to reach as big an audience as possible.
