Week 11
Image from the film Stray Dogs
Although this is a little late, we have just completed our final week before our hiatus while our team returns to class to finalize our undergraduate degree and things have moved quickly. It feels like just yesterday we were getting the team together and figuring out exactly what it was we wanted to do and who would take on each task. Now here we are with 5 chapbooks published. We really do have an amazing team here at Whispering Wick. Each member dedicates themselves to ensuring that now, and in the future, we will be able to provide new and/or first-time authors with a platform to showcase their work in a unique style. With that said, we noticed that most of our blogs didn’t have much information on our team members in design, promotion, and website content, and so for this final weekly update we wanted to share a word from each of our team members in those departments. We hope you enjoy!
Faizal
“This week, I was asked by our Editor-in-Chief, Nate, to provide a little blurb for the weekly blog. Now, I normally contribute to the blogs via my reviews, but I think that it would be interesting to talk about my own experiences here at Whispering Wick. I may have been late to join the Whispering Wick team, but I was welcomed with open arms and a loving atmosphere. I’m really proud of all the progress we’ve made in such a short time and the resilience it took for us to get here. We show our passion with every project we complete, and that is something that I truly appreciate. I also owe it to Nate and Tamara for believing in me and for giving me the chance to join the team – it’s been a great experience and I’m just so happy that I’ve been able to contribute to what Tamara has mentioned as the “heart of Whispering Wick.” I look forward to all the successes we will see in the future. Cheers!”
Grace
“Before starting at Whispering Wick, the most design experience I had were some rough GIMP and Canva skills and a couple of handmade booklets I’d made in highschool, now collecting dust in my drawer. The only real chapbook I had made from start to finish was my chapbook for our program’s self-publishing class. I really think that class is where all of us got and locked away the idea for a chapbook press. We all loved that class and I am so grateful to Tamara for pushing ahead and founding this press. It is truly a joy to work at Whispering Wick amongst friends whose work I respect and admire.
But my designing abilities were something I needed to improve-- and quickly-- if I wanted the press to have covers and interiors that looked good and were something we could all be proud of. Most of my first week at Whispering Wick was a self-inflicted GIMP crash course and hours and hours of trying to figure out layouts for various things in Canva. Shoutout to these awesome free tools, honestly. I’d be hopeless without them. I got faster at creating in GIMP as I got a better handle on all the tools and their functions.
Now that we have three published chapbooks and two more on the way, of which I’ve designed covers for four and interiors for all five, I’m very proud of the work I’ve put into how these chapbooks look. I believe the design of the chapbook should lend itself to the writing. It should complement but not overpower the words. That’s something I’ve tried to convey in all my design work because, after all, this press was started to share new voices and stories, and those voices should be loudest on the page, with the design as a vessel to share that voice.”
Rebecca
“I have been blessed to be a part of the creation and operation of Whispering Wick. I love working creatively with a team of like-minded people which is made even better because this group is full of my friends. I’ve been able to observe us all grow and problem-solve together.
Launching a chapbook press was something I realized I wanted to do shortly after starting the CW&P program, but I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to do alone. Being able to publish my own collection of poetry was a dream come true and my friends were able to make that a reality with me which makes it so much better than what I ever thought it could be. This year has been really hard but being a part of the Whispering Wick team has made it bearable.”
Continue to stay tuned as even though we may be on hiatus, you will still be provided with new and exciting content!
As always, a joke from our editor in chief:
“How much does a hipster weigh? An Instagram.”
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