A crashing wave of gold, blue, purple and green watercolor paint. A starry sky taken out of a children’s book. A photograph of a creek in the woods, leading into a dense forest. These were just a few designs displayed during the meeting of Hagerty’s first literary magazine on Dec. 1 at 1:20 p.m. 

Held in room 6-201, club adviser Britton Taylor and club leader Caitlyn Hale spoke to the group of five about topics including possible themes, the submission process and tentative deadlines. 

A literary magazine is a collection of student work including short stories, poetry, artwork, commentary and design spreads, with submissions linked together through a central design theme. 

“I did a lot of research into different literary magazines. I googled what the FSPA rubric was, what the criteria was, and what a literary magazine needs to have to be a literary magazine,” Hale said. 

As of right now, the tentative submission deadline is late February and the magazine is expected to be published in late May. Hale plans to collect submissions through a Google form that can be accessed through posters that will be posted around school. 

Months before the meeting, the idea of a literary magazine had developed due to the number of creative classes already available, including Advanced Digital Design, Digital Art, Newspaper, Yearbook and Creative Writing. Through conversations with creative writing teacher Christine Forza and students of Advanced Digital Design, Taylor developed a plan for the creation of the literary magazine, asking Hale, who had some previous experience with literary magazine design, to lead the first meeting. 

“It’s a chance to present [people’s] work in a way that will get to the majority of students. They get to have that exposure and contribute to the magazine,” Hale said. 

While publications such as the BluePrint newspaper and Fusion yearbook exist, Taylor believes the literary magazine has distinctive characteristics that make it stand out from others. 

“I think being able to [showcase] some of the work from lesser known artists in school or people who don’t usually get seen is kind of an exciting thing,” Taylor said. 

Members who attended, including junior Hannah Kuerbitz and senior Bella Knowles, added that the literary magazine was something they had never seen on campus before. 

“Journalism is kind of like ‘I’m reporting on this thing that somebody did, or this game that happened’, but [a literary magazine] is an expression of creativity, of different emotions and feelings,” Kuerbitz said. 

As for Knowles, who has been published in national teen magazine Teen Ink, the new club is an opportunity for students to get their works published. 

“Being published in something is really inspiring to a lot of people. And I know, I’ve been published on a couple of websites and seeing that my piece had been put online was so inspiring. I really want to give people that opportunity,” she said. 

The next meeting will be on Wednesday, Jan. 12 in 6-201 at 1:20 p.m.