Penumbra Process: Summer 2021 Virtual Launch

Recently, Penumbra Online published our Summer 2021 Self-Love issue on our website and held our virtual launch. In the weeks before the launch, our editors were hard at work discussing the various submissions we received and making our final decisions, a process with which our team struggled greatly. Our staff operates democratically, allowing each editor to weigh in on the submissions for consideration. Sometimes this leads to some lengthy discussion as debates take place and opinions vacillate from one stance to another. 

Following our final decisions, the accepted works passed through our copy-editing phase, along to our small volunteer design team. Although our Summer 2021 Self-Love Issue is only our third virtual launch, our design team members have started becoming more comfortable with the overall format of our digital issues. In preparing what we hope is a visually pleasing, easy to use website, we designed the format for the current Summer Issue with three different viewing methods in mind. The first method is from the initial table of contents, where readers and viewers can select the specific piece they would like to enjoy from the table of contents and be taken directly to that piece. Our second viewing method was designed for those who might be interested in one specific genre; by clicking on the genre on any of our issue's pages, a viewer can be taken to a page that allows them to scroll through all accepted pieces in that genre without having to access each one individually. Finally, our third viewing method is for those who wish to browse the entire issue in one continuous page, which can be accessed via the "View All" button on any of the pages in the issue. In this way, we hope to provide options to our viewers so that everyone can enjoy the issue in whichever way suits them the best. 

On August 14th, we not only launched our Summer 2021 Issue, which can, at the time of writing, be found under the "Current Issue" tab and will later be permanently available under our "Archives" tab, we also held our virtual launch event in the form of a casual coffee hour. Our event was held as a celebration of the authors and artists who were published in our issue, but it also celebrated our self-love theme and provided a relaxed environment where contributors, staff members, and other attendees could talk about writing, art, and the various experiences and inspirations we've had. Our virtual launch, held via Zoom, is something we, at Penumbra Online, enjoy hosting as a celebration of each new issue we publish. It provides us with an opportunity to meet new people and expand our creative circle. For those who missed our Summer event, we will begin work on our Fall 2021 Issue soon, and everyone is, of course, welcome to attend our Fall event when it takes place. For every issue, we strive to further our development and create something that brings enrichment and enjoyment to our audience. 

Author

Jessica Charest