Progress Update: Moving Forward

With work underway after the long holiday weekend, Superstition Review staff are back in their weekly routines. Our section editor pairs are finalizing their solicitation lists and outlining the templates they will use to contact potential artists, interviewees, poets, fiction and non-fiction authors.

The staff is also continuing to view open submissions, which are being received through http://superstitionreview.submishmash.com/submit during our reading period of September and October.

In addition to their hard work on this issue of Superstition Review, staff members have completed intern questionnaires that allow a more in depth look into each staff member’s life and their decision to join the Superstition Review team. With the help of our photoshopper formatting staff members’ head shots, I will begin posting a segment called “Meet The Interns” in the weeks to come to introduce each intern. Stay tuned as the week progresses for more information.

Progress Update: We’re off to a smooth start

Even though our staff has only just started week 2 of Superstition Review Issue 6, a clear outline of tasks for the issue is beginning to form. The newest interns to the publication met with each other during a luncheon on Saturday August 28th to discuss their duties and to introduce themselves to their fellow interns. Check back on Friday September 3rd for an inside look at the event.

Last week our Section Editors for art, fiction, interviews, nonfiction, and poetry started researching authors and artists from whom to solicit work. Looking ahead to this week our Section Editors will be making their final choices and will begin sending solicitation letters. They will also start viewing open submissions, which will begin streaming in to http://superstitionreview.submishmash.com/submit during our reading period of September and October. Our Reading Series Coordinator and Advertising Coordinator have also begun researching their options for authors to feature in our two-part reading series and avenues for potential advertising opportunities.

Last but certainly not least our photoshopper is working on editing staff headshots and biographies for the Superstition Review website.

As you can see, we are just getting the ball rolling on Issue 6. Be on the lookout in the coming weeks for continuous updates on our progress.

Progress Update: Movement

It’s been a week with a lot of movement at Superstition Review. Our submissions period closed on Wednesday, so we now are shifting to preparing for our Issue 5 launch, which is quickly approaching in mid-April.

Once submissions stopped on Wednesday night, our Submissions and Solicitations Coordinators posted all final submissions to the section discussion boards for evaluation. Then, our Section Editors quickly finished reading and responding to all submissions. Now, their focus is on sending out acceptance and rejection notifications and awaiting the return of bios and headshots from authors with accepted works.

Our Web Design Team is currently brainstorming ideas for optimizing navigation on our website, while our student web design worker finishes resolving some issues with our site design. Soon, our Web Designers will begin adding the content of this issue to the website!

The rest of the interns are continuing along their individual tracks: our Advertising Coordinator is building connections and getting the word out about our Issue 5 launch; our Interview Coordinator is communicating with our interviewees; our Reading Series Coordinator is finding potential readers for next semester; our Photoshopper is formatting headshots as she receives them; and I’m keeping the blog updated.

The semester’s end is drawing near, and we are excited that everything seems to be falling into place. We can’t wait to see the final outcome of all our hard work!

Progress Update: It’s the End of Week 5 Already?

It’s nearing the end of our fifth week with Superstition Review, and it seems we’re entering that part of the semester where time speeds up and days blend together. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

Our Solicitations Coordinator has sent out email solicitations to authors chosen by our Section Editors, and we’re already beginning to receive solicited work! Our Interview Coordinator has also sent out interview requests, and we now have almost all of our interviews set up. This means our Section Editors are especially busy at the moment: keeping up with reading both open and solicited submissions, while also preparing questions for their interviewees! Our Content team has been strong and steady behind the scenes keeping this whole process organized.

Our Advertising Coordinator has been busy building connections to advertise our submissions period (you have until March 31st to send us your work!), and is starting to work on marketing for our launch. Our Reading Series Coordinator has run into some roadblocks, but is now working to find us a reader for March. Our Development Coordinator for grants and partnerships has been researching all the details for grants we might be eligible for, while our other Development Coordinator has been breezing through formatting past issues of Superstition Review for Kindle. Lastly, we received exciting news this week that we will soon be hiring a professional web designer to solve some web issues and help out our Web Design team.

And now we’re zooming madly on to week six. Don’t forget to check back for updates!

This Past Week: Call for Contributors Begins

This week has been a little crazy for the interns at Superstition Review–the semester’s just taking off and things have been getting busy!

The prose and poetry editors have completed their solicitation lists this week and are preparing to email writers we’re all hoping will contribute to the fourth issue of SR. They’ve also been working on a list of writers they’d like to interview for the journal. This is an exciting time for these editors because right now they’re working with infinite possibilities on who to ask for contributions, and who to interview–it’s not until next week, when they send out emails to their lists of people, that the anxiety sets in while they wait for replies.

The art editors are working along those same lines. They’re reviewing artists’ works, looking at suggestions and their lists of solicitations, and trying to figure out whom they would like to approach for a contribution.

These editing teams, the prose, poetry, and art, have also alerted the Content Team of their full lists of solicitations and interview-hopefuls in order to let these interns keep tabs on what’s going in and out at the journal. The Content Team must keep track of what will be featured and what’s making the editing cut, so it’s equally important they get the foundational work done now.

The Web Design team is continuing to discuss how to improve the site for increased ease of navigation and aesthetic appeal. The interns in this group are working on getting photos of all the interns up, new site design, and, of course, keeping you up to date on what’s going on via the blog, our Twitter account, and our Facebook fan page.

Our administrative interns are busy with all things media this week: they’ve been planning the upcoming Reading Series, coming up with a contest for the journal, researching advertising opportunities, and, perhaps the most exciting for our readers, working on a Kindle-based version of SR.

Trish, our Editor-in-Chief has been attending meetings with the individual teams, keeping us updated with podcasts, and making sure things run smoothly, all while handling her normal full teaching load at ASU Polytechnic this semester.

That about wraps it up for this week. Next week, with solicitations leaving the desks of the interns, it’ll be a high-anxiety, nervous, and, frankly, exhilarating time as we keep our fingers crossed to see who decides they’d like to submit to SR.

New and Improved Blog Coming Soon!

Hello Everyone!

If you’ve kept up with the SR News Blog, you may have noticed a lack of posts for the past week or so. Never fear! This is not us losing interest in keeping our wonderful readers posted, but a foreshadowing of wonderful news.

The SR News Blog is getting a makeover; one that will make it even more informative and interactive than before!

So check back at the beginning of next week to see the exciting new face of the SR News Blog!
And as always, thanks for reading!