The editorial board of the school’s literary magazine will release this year’s edition of the Different Drummer on May 26; this year’s theme is Growth and Decay.
The magazine comprises a variety of student submitted pieces, ranging from short stories to creative nonfiction to photography. Three different teams–the submission team, the selection team and the design team–work together to create Different Drummer from start to finish; all are members of English teacher William Schrader’s fourth-period Creative Writing class.
The magazine allows students to learn and practice the publication process.
“It gives students here an opportunity to share their work with the school community and become published artists and writers,” Schrader, the Different Drummer faculty advisor, said.
The submissions team focuses on advertising the magazine and increasing student submissions, and the selection committee–seniors Brooke Attaway, Sparrow Ussery Intintolo and Lily Sharp and junior Emrys Bowers–comb through all the pieces and decide which ones are best suited for the magazine. The design team focuses on the layout of the magazine and fitting all of the pieces together.
Each piece that is submitted goes through several rounds of edits, ensuring that all the pieces have been vetted carefully.
“We evaluated the creativity of the piece, the technical execution, and the impact that the piece had,” Sharp said. “After debating, we selected our favorite pieces that we thought reflected the entire student body’s creativity and passion and chose about 20 pieces to publish out of the many works submitted.”
Many students are involved in multiple stages in the development process.
“I wanted to participate in all I could, so I am on the submission, selection and design team. I’ve also tried to contribute where I can with extra help and work both in and outside the designated class time!” Attaway said.
There are many steps in the development of the Different Drummer, and students work year round on the different projects. Pieces are submitted starting at the beginning of the year, many of which come from Schrader’s fourth-period Creative Writing students, and the selection process begins in March.
Once the pieces have been selected, students from the design team choose the formatting of the the title page and the different design elements of the magazine
“The magazine is still a work in progress, but I’m sure that I’ll be most proud of the title page design,” junior Anya Fitel, a member of the design team, said.
Different Drummer is a unique way for students to share their literature and art to their classmates and peers.
“I really enjoy working on the magazine because I get to see other people’s creativity and work with super cool people,” Bowers said.
