Let's Feel Inspired
February is here,
and so it brings with it dark clouds, cold nights, the Olympics and
the start of the editors over here at The Suisun Valley Review to
come to a collective understanding of what a good piece of short
fiction or poetry truly is. We all have gone out to the local
bookstores in search of small literary magazines, such as ours, to
find pieces published in them that we all really enjoy. We each
picked one piece, and put them all together in a packet that acts as
our textbook. This packet of published work has been the focal point
for us editors for the week. Every single piece in the packet has
been scrutinized for things such as its overall craft, and quality as
written work. We had to ask ourselves questions like, “What makes a
poem a good poem and what makes a piece of short fiction
outstanding?” All of the work we will receive as submissions to our
mag will be fantastic, but we need to figure out as a class what
makes a piece great and what it makes it truly amazing. Our goal is
to publish only the best and the awe inspiring. It’s a tough goal
to accomplish, but by looking at the works already published, we have
taken to first step in accomplishing this goal.
We've also begun
to look for things that inspire design. It’s time to start thinking
about what the internal layout of our magazine should be, and there
are a lot of things to consider, things that wouldn’t even have
crossed one’s mind if they weren’t creating a literary magazine
from scratch. Like the spacing between the first and last name of the
published author, and the color of the page number. These are all
tough decisions that eventually must be made. To make those decisions
we have to look at things that inspire us as editors and as designers
of a literary journal. We've looked at things such as the color of
the ski boots worn by Olympic downhill skiers or even the splash page
of a different literary journal. Sometimes it just takes a second to
sit back and look at the world for the inspiring. Our goal is to
create a design that inspires the reader.
A part of the class got together to create a display case showcasing the literary magazine in the English department here at Solano Community College. It really turned out great!
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| 2014 SVR Display Case in the 700 building at SCC |
