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Defining Diversity |
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Delirium is an interdisciplinary journal published monthly. Each month, excluding June through September, Delirium publishes a new issue fostering diverse topics in categories that include the following: nonfiction, fiction, poetry, literary criticism, travel, arts and entertainment, and Delirium University. The Beginning—YAWP! In December 2000, Dr. Jonathan Pitts, assistant professor of the English Department at Ohio Northern University, sent out an e-mail inviting all interested students to an informational meeting about a new on-line magazine the university wanted to create. At this first informational meeting, Jessica Shaw, a sophomore Professional Writing major, accepted the position of managing editor. In addition to this staff placement, Dr. Michael George held a brief overview session, covering essential techniques needed to establish a website using Dreamweaver, a web publishing software program. Dr. Pitts presented his preliminary sketches of the site, as well as his objectives—publishing serious critiques on popular culture and technology that push creative boundaries and are intellectually stimulating—for the e-zine. The initial web site address was http://www.onu.edu/user/FS/ jpitts/yawp.htm. The on-line magazine’s title, YAWP!, was derived from Walt Whitman’s poem, “Song of Myself”—the speaker wants to “sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world!” YAWP! was a quarterly journal of hypertext fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and criticism, and, as the journal title suggests, YAWP! sought pieces that reflected on the role of technology in our lives. It asked its audience: has technology made us better people? Subsequently, the on-line magazine looked for writing that considered such a question from any imaginative and/or rhetorical/theoretical angle. The inaugural issue planned to include: an interview with cyberpunk novelist and avant-pop professor Lance Olsen and a hypertext poem by Robert Lietz. Name Change Within a few weeks, managing editor, Jessica Shaw, poetry editor, Misty Decker, and fiction editor, Mike Blake, discovered many on-line magazines with the title, “YAWP!” and decided to change the name of this new e-zine to Delirium. The website address was http://www.onu.edu/user/FS/jpitts/delirium.htm before the staff obtained the domain name http://www.deliriumjournal.org. The e-zine broadened its scope to include seven basic categories: general nonfiction on any topic, fiction, poetry, humor, literary criticism, critiques of music, and critiques of film. Hypertext articles were no longer necessary, and Delirium’s goal was to keep the e-zine as diverse as possible. With diversity in mind, it accepted many genres of written work from science fiction to inspirational. The staff underwent another change resulting in the following: Mike Blake as the fiction and humor editor, April Leiffer as the literary criticism and reviews editor, Ian Good as the media criticism and reviews editor and technical advisor, Jonathan Pitts as the nonfiction editor, Misty Decker and T. Ryan Alvanos as the poetry editors, and Jessica Shaw as the managing editor. Structure of Web Site Undergoes Major Face Lift After publishing its inaugural issue in May 2001, Technical Advisor, Ian Good, implemented the staff’s suggestions concerning the structure and appearance of the website. The staff’s goals were to attract an audience to a more professional and sophisticated on-line magazine. In addition to the new sections—travel, art, and music—new staff members joined the project: Jessica Bopp as the nonfiction editor and Scott Wortman as the music editor and assistant web director. In the middle of the 2001-2002 school year, Becky Storbeck replaced T. Ryan Alvanos and Misty Decker as poetry editor. During the 2001-2002 school year, Delirium published three theme-based issues: Technology & Historical Memory in November 2001, Pop/Culture? in February 2002, and Disability Culture in May 2002. Each issue spotlighted a feature piece: November’s issue featured a serialized memoir by Holocaust survivor, Ephraim Glaser, February’s issue featured an interview with MyOpia, a grassroots band in Northwestern Ohio, and May’s issue featured a memoir by Tamar Gordon, who has lived with Multiple Sclerosis for over twenty years. Due to the readership increase and staff growth experienced by Delirium in the 2001-2002 school year, the e-zine decided to implement the first of its many changes—becoming a monthly publication instead of quarterly, as it was for the 2001-2002 school year. This modification nurtures the e-zine as it begins accepting submissions that are of various topics and themes, eliminating the concept of quarterly theme based issues from its publications. Beginning in the January 2003 issue, the Delirium staff implemented an Editorial Advisory Board, a peer review panel of professors from Ohio Northern University and universities across the world. The board’s purpose is to review academic submissions. The panel and its reviews will serve as an accreditation program for submissions, giving credibility and high marks to exceptional work. Currently Seeking Creativity Each quarter, Delirium asks writers to submit well written, interesting, and, most importantly, creative submissions for publication. Delirium seeks to foster creativity among writers and therefore defines creativity in many ways in order to allow for diversity among submissions. Some of the ways that Delirium defines creativity are as follows: imaginative, appealing to senses, diverse in nature, grasping the attention of the reader, and appealing to the intellect in new and interesting ways. Submissions to the e-zine may also be of a diverse group of written form. Delirium currently accepts submissions of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and literary criticism. The on-line magazine also encourages the creative exploration of travel writing, humor writing, music, photography, and art. |
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