Quentin Blake and Alison Turnbull have been announced as guest editors of the Mays XXIII.

Editor of The Mays, Emily Fitzell, has just announced that this year the publication will be guest edited by illustrator Quentin Blake and artist Alison Turnbull. They join a distinguished list of previous guest editors, including such notable literary figures as Ted Hughes and Stephen Fry.

The anthology comprises a variety of new works submitted by students from both Oxford and Cambridge, with many of the authors featured in the anthology rising to later prominence. Zadie Smith, who had her work ‘Mrs. Begum’s Son and the Private Tutor’ featured in the 1997 edition, returned as a guest editor in 2001 after literary agencies noticed her in the Mays.

The anthology has also provided a springboard for the careers of many former student editors, including Nick Laird.

This year, Editor Emily Fitzell is keen to go for an interdisciplinary approach.

"Reactions to the announcement could not have been better," she told Varsity. "And for the editorial team, what an opportunity to work with two exceptional artists."

Sir Quentin Blake commented: "It has been a pleasure for me in recent years to be able to be involved in various ways in the life of the University and of my own college, Downing, so that it's an added privilege - and enjoyable - to be invited by the Mays to help look at new writing and visual art in Cambridge."

His co-editor Alison Turbull said she was "immediately intrigued" upon receiving the initial invitation.

"The proposal to collapse categories - such as poetry and prose - and to allow visual art and literature to overlap appealed to me," she said. "And when I heard that my fellow guest editor was to be Sir Quentin Blake, I was even more intrigued – what curious hybrid might we produce?"

Emily has said of the guest editors: "Quentin and Alison both have an extraordinary ability to communicate distinctive visual poetics through their art. Their involvement with the project will support and inform its attempt to create an equally distinctive anthology - one which considers the book as an artform in itself."

In the call for submissions, the editors express the hope that "segregations of poetry, prose and visual arts will be removed from the anthology", instead focusing on the idea of a "blank, receptive canvas". Attention will instead, they say, be directed towards the medium itself, encouraging readers to engage with the "multiplicitous ways in which we can speak, perform and reside within the pages of a book".

As well as these art forms, the Mays also accepts submissions of short films, comics, graphic novels and recordings of performance art or theatre.

The Mays aims to highlight the most exciting new literature and artwork produced by students. The publication was founded in 1993, originally in two separate volumes known as the May Anthologies, or The Mays Literary Anthology. They have been combined in a single anthology since 2003, based at Cambridge University, edited by students, and published by Varsity publications.

The new anthology of the Mays XXIII is being launched at The Junction on June 12th.

This event is free admission with e-ticketing via The Junction website.

You can also follow the Mays on Twitter.