During the Literary magazine’s first year, previous freshman Grayson Campbell stumbled upon the creative writing class and fell right into the production of the literary magazine. Since then he has become one of its Editors.

The current sophomore has come back this year to continue helping out the magazine all year. He takes creative writing as an elective, with teacher Jill Hagmaier and hopes to contribute the magazine throughout his high school career.

“I took [creative writing] last year, and we [had] to make [a Literary magazine] every semester. I really enjoyed the process, so I asked if I could come back and help with the other ones. [Jill Hagmaier] assigns an editor every semester,” Campbell said.

Last school year was a new experience for everybody when it came to making the Literary magazine. Campbell believes the process this year will go a lot smoother, allowing the magazine to look nicer, because of his attendance at the VHSL Media Championships in 2018 to help learn more about making a magazine.

“I think that the [Literary magazine] will go a lot better this year because it was everyone’s first [time] last year, including Hagmaier’s. Now that she knows what is going on, and we know what is going on, it should run faster and looks better,” Campbell said. “It’ll look more uniform because we set more of a code. Last year it was sort of thrown all together with whatever fonts and such that people wanted, [but] this year we have a theme.”

The process for deciding which pieces will go into the magazine is all done through the creative writing class.

“We had to go through the choosing process where we get all the papers, rank them and we choose which ones actually go into the magazine. Then we each pick one piece, and we set the page up with pictures and art,” Campbell said.

Campbell believes that the Literary magazine is another way to express yourself and your art. Whether it’s writing, painting, drawing or photography, the Literary magazine accepts them all. On behalf of the Literary Magazine, Campbell stressed the importance of more student participation.

“We need more people to submit because this is actually the sort of thing that can go in a portfolio of yours, which is a big thing for colleges. Your writing will get out there, which if you want that to happen, this is a good way to do it.” Campbell said. “We don’t have enough submissions half of the time, [so] I think it would be a lot better if it was more flushed out and [included] more diversity in the writers and the artists. [The Literary magazine] is just important to everyone especially when they get read.”