As the semster as come to an end, my weekly blog posts will become more sparse. I do not say they will end because I will be continuing my journey with Toyon into the spring semester. Myself, along with a group of others, will be meeting to discuss the realease of our 63rd issue of Toyon, the steps needed to reach these goals, and then making it happen. My goal is to use this website to post about what we're doing, goals, accomplishments, timelines, etc., in order to keep myself organized and keep the site alive. In addtion, I'll be able to add to my examples and resume section all the things I accomplish during this time.
Over the semester I've realized how essential having an updated website is to meeting my goals. The weekly blog posts kept me writing, kept me motivated in thinking about ways to progress in Toyon, how I planned to do these things, and most importantly kept me on track with production. Having posted a timeline to the website worked fantastically as a reminder when I would pause about what I orginially wanted/needed to do that week in regards to my role. I often found myself rereading posts to see if I had met my goals, and if not, how I could meet them in the next week. Having a place where all my ideas, goals, actions, and schedule were all together made the semster feel way less stressful as I could easily navigate through my website to keep up. At first when I created the site I felt embarrased because I had zilch to put on here. I was at a loss in how I was going to bulk things up and make the pages look good. What was to go where, and how? What examples should I have and again, how to arrange it all? What should be on here and what should I leave out? Once I began the weekly posts, doing all the readings, looking into job descriptions, talking to other students and faculty advisor, I was able to transform a seemingly barren patch of internet into a garden of knowledge and experience. The previously mentioned helped give me a starting place and from there it became second nature to be thinking about how I could apply what I've done inside and outside of Toyon to my blog. As my website started coming along, I noticed the potential it had and all it could do for me. I became invested in creating a website I was proud of. A huge thing was to stop viewing it as a school assignment only myself and the professor would see, and start looking at it as a career tool. Ever since I became confident in my webiste, I began telling other students they should make one too and why it's beneficial for them. Once I saw how far I've come with my website, I realized how silly it would be to discontinue using it. I've put so much work into all my posts, constantly changing things around, adding and deleting, that it'd be a shame to let it all end with the semester. As I continue on my path of being a writer and editor, there will be much more I can add to this site. Having a place to keep everything I've learned, done, and can do, is a wonderful way to show future employers everything they might want to know about me. Contrary to my feelings in the beginning, I now view my website a valuable asset to my career path, and as a tool I want to keep sharpening.
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When thinking about Toyon's future, the first word that came to mind was "expansion." Toyon has this breadth of quality writing laying in wait to be read, and sadly, I've come to realize that many issues will never leave the Toyon room. Growth in our readership is neccessary for our literary journal, and while we are supported by the university, many university students aren't even aware of Toyon exists. For the literary journal's future, advertising must become a more important feature. While we're trying consistently to advertise our call for submissions and produce the journal, we fail to advertise simply reading Toyon and it's newest issue. Additionally, while the semester progressed I noticed a lack of flyers, which means students weren't being made aware of the journal at all once the time limit of having your flyer posted, was up. Since we know there's a limit to how long our flyers will be allowed to stay on the boards in the halls, we can keep a sheet to track this and re-post flyers as needed.
There's a tendency to do a week or two of advertisment, then forgetting all about promoting Toyon as the deadline for submissions passes. In order to keep Toyon's presence strong amongst HSU, fliers, tabling, etc., need to continue throughout the semester, not just at one stage of production. As I mentioned before, many students have no idea we exist and we need to change that by reaching out to them more than we have in the past. An idea to increase awareness of Toyon in general, is by creating t-shirts for the staff. Staff members can wear their shirts periodically throughout the semester increasing Toyon's exposure, and encouraging others to ask "what's Toyon?" or be reminded of us throughout their day. When I created a shirt for Astronomy day I had many people coming up to me and asking where I got my shirt from and what was astronomy day. This allowed me to pitch the event to the student, answer any questions they have, and invited them to joing the event on Facebook to remind them of it later. When someone says they're attending an event through Facebook, it posts to their wall, increasing the amount of people exposed to the event. When thinking about the spring release, I feel we could apply the same ideas listed above. We could have the students involved in the spring course, consistently advertising the release different ways each week. For example, we table a few days for the first week, next we post the flyer another week, and as we draw closer to the date, we announce to our classes, then repeat. Again, I think t-shirts would be a great way to effortlessly advertise ourselves and engage in conversations with the public about who we are and what we do. Something I would reccomend for future staff members, are to think of other ways to engage our readership with Toyon. By this I mean asking the reader's to submit their personal suggestions, comments, stories, etc. about Toyon, to Toyon. We could encourage people to speak with us so we can tailor our content to what people want to read about. Or we could have them send photos of them reading our journal so we can post it to our social media platforms. Another idea could be taking personal testimony from reader's and sharing them at the end of the journal. We could advertise this to our readership, asking them to submit what Toyon means for them for a chance to be published at the end of the journal. For me it felt as if there's a disconnect between us and the audience, and I want future staff to work on creating a bridge between the journal and the audience. People want to feel as if they're apart of something, that they have a voice. Over the next five years that's something I see Toyon working on giving them, in addition to becoming more aggressive in advertising our journal outside of submissions. Jocelyn and I put together a document for current and future staff memebers about what's available to them outside of Toyon. For awhile, it seemed there wasn't anything outside of Toyon for us English Majors to be apart of, but this semster we put ourselves to work, found the skills desired by employers, emailed a few proffessors, then put together how students can attain these skills through other courses offered here at HSU and College of the Redwoods (CR), along with literature aids to help guide them along the way. We open with a video about what it means to be an Editor, as it can be hard for some to fully grasp all that we are responsible for. This is meant to be a living doc. for others to add to as they find other valuable resources for students that will help them develop themselves further as Editors, and gain neccesary experience to land the jobs they apply for. |
resources_for_staff_members_looking_to_build_on_their_editorial_skills.docx | |
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After reading "On the Conjunction of Editing and Compositions" by Peter Gizzi, he had put what editing meant to me in words I couldn't bring forth myself. I felt this qoute sums it up nicely, "In editing, one selects the culture one wants to endure," (231, Paper Dreams). My first role as a Poetry Editor allowed me to do just this, to select the poems I wanted the community to read, to select the poems I felt created a world I wanted to be apart of. I never thought so much would come from joining the Toyon staff, I though it would be a simple class that would satisfy some units and I'd eventually forget all about it. Wrong. For the first time in three years, I knew what I had wanted to do with my life and there was a motivation in me that had never existed before.
My role as an Editor has given me the skills, the experience, and the dedication I'll need for future jobs in the publishing world outside of my university. So far, I've bought 4-6 books all about publishing, edting, what makes a good story or a bad story, how to read poetry and short stories, all to help better myself and become a valuable member of the Toyon team. The skills learned on my time as a staff member go beyond the journal and have also helped me in other areas. As a writer myself, this course has helped me really put into perspective what I want to write, when to know what's good and what to cut, and what world I'm trying to create between those pages. Before I would just write aimlessly, maybe some heavily metaphored pieces, but now I'm able to put a focus on my work and criticize my own work effectively.
Back to how this would help me with future jobs, is I've learned a lot of the lingo, I've learned how to manage deadlines and communicate with other staff members, and ask for help when I'm confused about what my next step is in production. These are valuable skills needed for making it in the job market; being on the same page as your editorial team is an absolute must!
How I plan to use the skills I developed during the semester is to apply them (as mentioned in previous paragraphs) to my own work! I want to publish my own comic book one day and being on the staff has helped me understand the process and the complexity of publshing literature. I feel after the time spent on Toyon, I'll finally be able to make my way into self-publishing. For now, I'm going to use these skills to help land an internship! I want my next step to be working with another publication and expand my editorial reach. I want to work with comic books and graphic novels more than anything, Toyon has prepped me with everything I need to apply and get my foot in the door. Comic books have created a world for me to belong to since I picked up my first comic, Calvin and Hobbes. I finally had something that made my world a little brighter and all I want to do is help give this feeling of belonging, of possibility and insiration to others. Toyon has allowed me this opportunity with our literary journal, and will allow me to make it to the comic book industry where I will be apart of changing people's lives through literature.
Submitting to a literary publication can be an ambivalent experience. On one hand, the adrenaline is coursing through your veins as you daydream about receiving your acceptance letter, while on the other you’re mentally and emotionally preparing for the rejection slip. All you can do is wait and hope for a, although unlikely, quick response. Similar to what Kate Chase mentions in Paper Dreams, expect rejection and embrace it. It’s going to happen repeatedly and it happens to everyone, there’s no shame in it. In fact, it can be an extremely beneficial experience in growing as a writer. If you send a hardcopy of your manuscript include a SASE so they can return your piece with their comments. Reread your piece along with the notations and make adjustments.
Before submitting in general, let the piece marinate for some time after you’ve finished the “final” draft, and when you come back to it with fresh eyes ask yourself, is this the best I can do here? If not, keep revising until you can firmly say this last version is your best work. Additionally, and I know this may go without saying, always proofread before sending in your work. If grammar isn’t your strong suit, or you just want an extra set of eyes, ask someone to revise your work for grammatical and coherency errors. In fact, even if you’re a grammar queen, have someone who loves to read, read over your work and let them honestly tell you how they felt about it. This will allow you to understand how others are reading and interpreting your work. Use their comments to make necessary changes, and remember you don’t need to change everything just because one person said so. Use your own judgement and know when to stand by your writing.
Being a person who has reviewed many, many submissions myself, do not send us your first or even second draft. We can tell, and while we read it to the end, it’s terribly upsetting to us. It’s almost offensive to be sent clearly unedited work, or a piece that has huge plot holes, or clear inconsistencies in the story. We want to love your work but it makes it difficult for us when we can’t understand what we’re reading due to easily fixable errors. Some also make the mistake in thinking that because a journal belongs to a university or has a small following, it means getting accepted is easy. This is highly untrue. Even small publications receive hundreds of submissions from highly experienced authors, new authors, and everything in between, who are all sending us their best work. Which again, I’ll bring up having another reader look over your work before sending it in for publishing. It will only help you!
Kate Chase also makes the point to research the magazine you’re submitting to. This is key! Do not ever submit something to a journal you’ve never even heard of before just because they’re accepting submissions. Some journals I’ve come across only accept one genre or focus on particular areas of interest such as science or business. Some are very strict in how they want the writing formatted, or what's to be included with a submission. Do not embarrass yourself or face immediate rejection by making easily avoidable mistakes. Learn about the magazine, what they stand for, what they look to publish, and who their audience is. You may even find the magazine you were thinking about sending work to, isn’t one you want to support or be featured in. Which brings me to another point on this matter. Only submit to magazines you actually like! What good will it do being published by a magazine you don’t even value? Yes, you’ll finally be able to say you’ve been published but it won’t mean anything or be an accomplishment for yourself. Check some out, find out what you like, and where you and your writing fit.
Lastly, don’t ever give up! Not every person who reads your work is going to get it, like it, or sometimes even have room to publish it as space can be and is limited. Keep going until you receive your acceptance letter. Some of the most famous authors today were rejected hundreds of times, and even occasionally are rejected now. Find another publication you like, submit to them. Write daily and improve your skills. Allow yourself time to become recognized, and believe in yourself. I know, corny right? Well, some of the truest statements are. Stay confident, keep on submitting, and you will get there.
There are many things to be taken into account while printing and producing a literary magazine as the constant flux of social, political, and economical issues are always playing a role in what people want to read, and how they want to read it (pdf., magazine, book, etc.) . As Kyle Schelsinger mentions in Paper Dreams, “War isn’t everything, but it changes everything: how we write, what we read, how we think we feel about what we see or “know”” (186). While climate change, deforestation, feminism, racism, and other issues are not wars like the Vietnam War, they are social, political, and economic wars against the citizens and the planet. These wars change everything for everyone and in respect, change everything for literary journals too. What Toyon needs to consider are the feelings their community has and piece together a journal which reflects the attitudes, the conflicts, the devastations, and hopes of our time. While Editors are reviewing submissions for production, this must always be in the back of their minds; they must always be searching for pieces that reflect what’s on society’s mind, what they want to read and need to read.
While the production team is choosing materials for printing they must consider the environment, what each choice means and will portray to our readers as the very paper and how we produce the physical journal itself acts as a secondary outlet for how we want our readers to interpret Toyon beyond the written aspects. Here at Humboldt, the preservation of our environment has always reigned a high priority and investment among students, faculty, administration, and the community around us. Especially with the current drought in California, the climate change crisis, and rapid depletion of forests, Toyon can show its support by choosing to go with the most environmentally friendly choices and by choosing to dedicate a section to Environmental Justice writing and visual art. This shows careful thought and respect for not only our values as staff members, but also the values of our community.
However, while being eco-friendly is great for the environment, it’s not always great to our funding. This means in order to make up for the more expensive changes, the journal needs to cut down on the material it accepts. It’s always a battle between what’s affordable and how we, ideally, want our journal to be in the end. This is where our online publication can come in allowing us to keep the desired number of accepted pieces, while also not adding to the number of pages for print. By transferring over the longer pieces to an online journal rather than the physical copy, we’ll save on resources. But, this brings up another issue of how the accepted artists would feel being kept out of the physical print and placed on the online publication. It’s just not the same thing, and making the choice to put some pieces online while some go into the hard copy could cause waves among contributors or feelings of distaste in submitting to Toyon. I do have a possible solution though.
I believe at some point Toyon ought to convert fully to an ePublication. However, this is not to say that Toyon shouldn’t print any physical copies. What I’m envisioning is the transfer to publishing online only, while also having the option to request a physical copy of the current issue. To accomplish this, there would be a tab or form visible to persons on the site to put in a request for a physical copy, at a max of five copies per request. So, if someone wanted to order more than five, they’d have to have another person fill out a form requesting “x” amount of copies. All requests would need to be in two months before the release party, where persons who placed an order can come pick up their hard copy. Of course they will need their receipt or a confirmation code given at the time of placing their order. This would go without any exceptions, no proof of order placed means no copy given (this would be clearly stated before and after filling out the request). This would highly cut down on the resources Toyon uses in order to produce our journal and allow us to use the leftover funding for other aspects of production, while also pleasing those who desire the hard copy.
Things done in the past week:
-Kept up with blog posts
-Decided on a topic for the research project with Jocelyn and began collecting information
-Read more of the CopyEditing HandBook and the Chicago Manual of Style
-Elaborated more with Jocelyn about our research project. We're both going to browse job listings to get an idea of what skills publishers are looking for in an employee, classes for editing and other publication courses available, and provide resources for publishing/copyediting outside of campus. Once we've gathered all our data we're going to go through it and organize the information in a google doc.
-Copyedited almost all the the accepted submissions, and will be meeting with Jocelyn on Friday to do one last final check before sending them over to Claudia to be typeset.
-Kept up with blog posts
-Decided on a topic for the research project with Jocelyn and began collecting information
-Read more of the CopyEditing HandBook and the Chicago Manual of Style
-Elaborated more with Jocelyn about our research project. We're both going to browse job listings to get an idea of what skills publishers are looking for in an employee, classes for editing and other publication courses available, and provide resources for publishing/copyediting outside of campus. Once we've gathered all our data we're going to go through it and organize the information in a google doc.
-Copyedited almost all the the accepted submissions, and will be meeting with Jocelyn on Friday to do one last final check before sending them over to Claudia to be typeset.
Jocelyn and I are going to research other courses which will aid any other students looking to develop their publishing skills and knowledge. We will also be looking at what is available in Eureka and Arcata, any workshops, groups etc. that are available. However, we have yet to put our information together. Over the weekend we've been working on copyediting the accepted submissions, and Jocelyn went out of town as well so we were unable to meet on Friday and converse further about the project. I've already made a list of a few courses that seem useful and emailed a couple professors in order to learn more about what the courses actually offer in relation to publishing, as well as asking them about any advice they have to give for inquiring students. I have yet to hear back from the professors, hopefully I will soon after midterms are finished.
After having a chance to browse through various literary journals online and in the Toyon room, I've been able to compose a short list of what I found works or doesn't.
What works:
- The award winning art piece used as the cover. Not only is this a big deal for the artist, but it really puts forth the idea that the journal is all about promoting the contributors work. This also allows for an extra space for another artist to make it into the journal.
-Using one font for the whole cover.
-Simple covers with only the title and volume done in a beautiful font. Something about the lack of art and color made it all the more interesting. I felt myself wanting to open these journals just as much as the others.
-Using a solid color for the cover, or multiple (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't), along with the title. Another kind of "simple" cover if you will.
-Using different textured material to create the cover from. It was interesting to see how much just the feel of the journal affected my desire to open it. Even having the look of being a different texture provoked me to want to check out the journal further. Some examples were looking like leather, glossy, matte, or looking crumpled/used (like a personal journal you've loved using for many years, a very nostalgic and intimate vibe).
What doesn't work:
-Using more than one font. This gave me the feeling that they were trying to hard to be artsy, or express it wasn't like other journals, or maybe that they couldn't decided so they went with the top three choices in hopes it'd work out. I didn't see the point in using more than one.
-Using fonts that looked like someone had handwritten them. It's nice for children, but for adults, it felt a bit immature or sloppy. One literally looked as if a staff member had written the title at the last second, followed by another chicken scratch drawing. For some, this works great but for me it wasn't effective.
-Plain covers. There is a difference between simple covers, and covers that are beautifully simple.
-Too much going on. A title with an expressive font, a very loud photo, plus a bright color for the background was overbearing. It felt chaotic and cramped.
What was done in the past week:
-Meet with Jocelyn on Friday to begin working with InDesign for a couple hours, as well as watched some of the tutorials in how to use the program.
-We looked at other journals and wrote down ideas for how we'd like to format the upcoming issue.
-Kept up with blog posts.
-Read/reviewed the "Chicago Manual of Style" and "The Copyeditor's Handbook".
-Placed markers for things I don't quite understand so I can ask questions during the class. Also, I placed markers for important pages (list of editing symbols, etc.) to easily flip back to them when needed.
-Fixed some issues with previous blog posts.
-Reviewed what a copyeditor is/ isn't responsible for when reading a contributor's work, and the symbols used during the process.
-Practiced the copyediting a short story and did fairly well. I learned that keeping a dictionary nearby is very useful to always check the spelling, as well as the usage of any word, that I am not 100% positive is correct. It was a good learning experience, which helped me understand what my strengths are, and where I need to improve.
-On Sunday I met again with Jocelyn to play around more with InDesign, and experiment with different types of layouts for the journal.
-In addition, we began brainstorming ideas for our research project- what type of information or resources we're looking for, how to get this information, what is actually valuable to the future of Toyon and it's staff, etc. We will be meeting again to finalize who is doing what and begin accumulating our data on Friday.
-Meet with Jocelyn on Friday to begin working with InDesign for a couple hours, as well as watched some of the tutorials in how to use the program.
-We looked at other journals and wrote down ideas for how we'd like to format the upcoming issue.
-Kept up with blog posts.
-Read/reviewed the "Chicago Manual of Style" and "The Copyeditor's Handbook".
-Placed markers for things I don't quite understand so I can ask questions during the class. Also, I placed markers for important pages (list of editing symbols, etc.) to easily flip back to them when needed.
-Fixed some issues with previous blog posts.
-Reviewed what a copyeditor is/ isn't responsible for when reading a contributor's work, and the symbols used during the process.
-Practiced the copyediting a short story and did fairly well. I learned that keeping a dictionary nearby is very useful to always check the spelling, as well as the usage of any word, that I am not 100% positive is correct. It was a good learning experience, which helped me understand what my strengths are, and where I need to improve.
-On Sunday I met again with Jocelyn to play around more with InDesign, and experiment with different types of layouts for the journal.
-In addition, we began brainstorming ideas for our research project- what type of information or resources we're looking for, how to get this information, what is actually valuable to the future of Toyon and it's staff, etc. We will be meeting again to finalize who is doing what and begin accumulating our data on Friday.
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