College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Graduation Date

6-2017

Document Type

Thesis

Department/Program Conferring Degree

Writing & Publishing

Keywords

reading, magazine, online, poems, paintings

Abstract

My final project/thesis consisted of learning about online journals (how they function, what makes them successful, etc) and creating one of my own. I created an online journal, East of Eden, and uploaded one issue. The issue I created, "The Bliss of Reading," is a magazine that has 100 poems from 100 poets, and they are paired with 100 paintings. The poems were pulled from back issues of Poetry East, with permission from editor, Richard Jones, and all of the paintings are from the public domain.

The process:

First, I learned how to code HTML via Lynda. I followed an eight-hour tutorial, which took me ten weeks. From there, I studied online journals, such as 32 Poems, 5 x5 Literary Magazine, and the Poetry Foundation. I studied how each website worked and what made them successful as well as their style, content, and accessibility. I, then, read issues of Poetry East. I combed through, searching for poems about reading, writing, grammar, and libraries; however, as I read through the issues, I wanted to encompass what the "Bliss of Reading" truly means--great poems no matter what the subject matter is. I paired 100 poems from 100 poets with 100 paintings. I then used InDesign and Photoshop to create an issue that I would upload onto a website I created for my journal, East of Eden.

Afterward:

I created this online journal to understand the fundamentals of creating a literary and arts journal as well as how to code HTML because the future of publishing will require not only sensitivity to literature but technological skills needed to present art and literature to future audiences.

Available for download on Monday, July 05, 2117

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