The deadline to submit your creative nonfiction for The Hoya’s Love Locks special issue is fast approaching. If, for some strange reason, you don’t know what this is, here’s a description of the project:

Inspired by the New York Times’ “Modern Love” essay series, The Hoya’s “Love Locks” project will publish submitted creative nonfiction pieces from students, professors and alumni.

The selected pieces will address love in a deeply personal, honest way — in the form of a true story — and explore predicaments that their writers have dealt with in their own lives.

We know that many of you are longing to submit your tales of love and romance, but might need some inspiration to get you started. So we’ve gathered some pieces for you to take a look at.

Perhaps you want to write about love and heartbreak…

NYT Modern Love: An Act of Protection, Even as Things Fell Apart

“Imagining his perpetrating that small deception for my benefit suggested a well of tenderness for me that I ached to believe was there. That he could presume I would never guess he had done it only elevated the act further.”

NYT: When an Open Relationship Comes at a Price

“He was jealous. He feared losing me. I’d thought I was living his principle, but I had really experienced only one side of being in an open relationship — the fun and easy side. How would I have responded if he had been the one making out and messing around? Not well, I suspected.”

NYT Modern Love: No Labels, No Drama, Right?

“All the while, we avoid labels and try to bury our emotions. We aren’t supposed to want anything serious; not now, anyway. But a void is created when we refrain from telling it like it is, from allowing ourselves to feel how we feel. And in that unoccupied space, we’re dangerously free to create our own realities.”

Remember, submissions are due by Oct. 30.

Photo: The Hoya