Alert for hard-working interns: Jim Groom will soon be blogging about his latest updates of the site, and next Wednesday we plan to forego our usual class procedure and conduct a conference call with him in which he’ll begin telling/showing you how to load material onto the site. Most specifically, I’ll want you all to construct the Intern field first with text, pictures, etc. If you haven’t sent me your comments on the internship for posting, you’re way behind the game and need to catch up. Bring laptops to class, as we’ll be upstairs in the conference room and without our usual trusty widescreen monitor.

Have a pleasant break.

RTS

If you’re following Jim Groom’s development of the Shenandoah on-line site, this is a good time to be thinking about the content for the Interns link, as well as a good time to be suggesting fonts, both for the body and the headers, and location of graphics.

On another note, I’d like to recommend two virtual venues to visit.  Chapter 16.org features entries about literature in Tennessee, but if you go to their Poetry and Fiction tabs, you’ll find fascinating and current commentary.  You’ll need to register, but that’s a snap.  No registration needed, however, to visit Brian Brodeur’s blog howapoemhappens.blogspot.com.  Almost every day Brian features a poem with a substantial list of questions concerning the text and composition answered by the poet.  Today it’s long-time Shenandoah contributor Richard Tillinghast.

RTS

So over the last six months I have been working with Rod Smith at Washington Lee University on bringing the literary journal Shenandoah entirely online. It is a real privilege to work on this project because Shenandoah has a very rich tradition representing Southern literature. What’s more, it was started by none other that Virginia’s own Tom Wolfe while an undergraduate at Washington and Lee University. And when I first went to the Shenandoah’s office back in September I had just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and it was amazing to talk with Rod about McCarthy’s vision, and his quick wit and cutting insights got me excited again. Excited about great writing, excited about Southern literature (Faulkner remains my godhead), and feeling the future of publishing has never been greater, and resources like Shenandoah available to everyone for free online was never cooler.

Continue reading “Bringing Shenandoah online”