Niles West’s former literary magazine titled Images has been renewed and launched as the interactive literary magazine Expressions in order to project students’ various talents in creative writing, poetry, art, and music.
Niles West Images used to be a magazine that was published in color containing different pieces of art, poetry, and other creative writing from students in the school. It had been the literary magazine for Niles West for many years, and yet it did not sell very much. The magazine ended up costing more to make than the amount of people who bought it.
Because of this, sponsor and English teacher Lisa DeNapoli decided that it was time for a change. Her and her staff of 10 students wanted to make the magazine interactive since it would draw more attention to itself and be easily acessible. Their decision led to the creation of Niles West Expressions.
“We decided that our publications would get more viewership if they were online rather than in print. We hope that the website will be an outlet for student creativity,” said Expressions’ editor-in-chief, junior Rachael Kossy.
The name “Expressions” was chosen to replace “Images” because it better described what the magazine was publishing — not just picture art, but all kinds of art from all different kinds of students. Expressions will now not only publish poetry, writing, and art, but it will also post audios of poetry by their authors as well as audio and video posts of any original music that students wish to submit.
According to Denapoli, the advantage to having an online magazine is that it allows students to see their own fellow classmates’ work as it is published day to day, with no cost. Furthermore, the fact that it is interactive will allow students to comment on the different submissions as well as continue to view the various posts with no trouble.
“We are really excited to showcase students’ talents online. While we love the print edition, the website will give our students a wider audience,” said Denapoli.
If students wish to submit anything, they can either email it to DeNapoli at [email protected] or bring it to the Expressions club meetings which take place every Monday after school in room 1199. All submissions will be taken into consideration and then published. The poetry, music, art, and any other creative writing must be original. If any student does not want their name on their work, they can request it to be anonymous.
Expressions will also be having a class poet competition. Poetry from each year will be put up for the competition and the winning class will receive a prize.
