Securing the Future of Shenandoah

Shenandoah literary magazine

As discussed in my last post, I’ve been working on getting all the sites I run secured.  An immediate candidate was the Shenandoah literary magazine. In 2010 I worked with Martha Burtis to design the site and have been hosting and maintaining it ever since. I have really enjoyed working with the editor R.T. Smith these last seven years, but he has announced his retirement this coming Spring. Well deserved. He took on the Herculean and unpopular task of moving a well respected physical publication entirely online. He weathered it beautifully, and with over a million views last year and half a million visitors the site has 25x the amount of exposure it did seven years ago. 

Traffic from August 1, 2011 – August 1, 2012

Traffic from August 1, 2016 – August 1, 2017

This is a very solid base to build on for whomever comes next, and I imagine the new editor will have some ideas of how to keep broadening access. What I loved about Rod’s vision is that it was open and accessible to everyone online: no logins, no paywalls, no nothing. Bringing culture to the interwebs is never a bad thing. That said, at the very least the site is due for a more responsive redesign. It will be interesting to see what the future has in store for Shenandoah, and I plan on making the transition to the new editor as seamless as possible. I will probably bow out as the “webmaster” once Rod leaves given my other commitments, but I plan on staying around long enough to make sure all is well. One of the things that has been on my list is securing Shenandoah to make sure the main site, the Snopes blog, and all 11 (soon to be 12) issues load over https.

To that end I issued a free Let’s Encrypt certificate yesterday, and ran the SSL Insecure Content Fixer plugin across the entire network. That worked seamlessly. It is worth noting that Shenandoah is a WordPress Multisite instance in which the blog and all 11 (soon to be 12) issues are their own site within the multisite. It is a subdirectory setup, so all the sites can be secured by one Let’s Encrypt certificate, which is nice. Once I forced SSL the two errors I got were caused by a network activated plugin that was outdated (pictured below) and an insecure image on the front page of several issues (the image was embedded from another site that did not have SSL). 

I deactivated the offending plugin, and I am looking for an alternative presently. I also replaced the embedded image with a local, secure alternative and all is well. The site is now running securely over https, and I will need to make sure there are no broken media links as a result. So if you see something, say something in the comments of this post.

There is a certain amount of satisfaction in having Shenandoah run securely over https. I admittedly waited too long, but better late than never.  It is also provides a long overdue push to start getting some other things shored up as we prepare for the future.


Shenandoah Abides

The other day Shenandoah‘s editor, the great R.T. Smith (Rod), reached out to me about preparations for the Spring issue. It struck me then that we have been doing this since the Spring of 2011. Oh how six years flies by.  I track it time-wise in my mind right alongside the semester ds106 went open and online. Martha Burtis helped me code the design for the site, and while it might be high-time for a redesign, I think it’s held up quite well.* It was built on WordPress Multi-Site, and each issue has its own WordPress instance defined by issue issue and number, such as issue 65, volume 2issue 66, volume 1, etc. The architecture was pretty simple. 

They also got rolling with a blog that has seen, on average, more than 5 posts a month for the last 6 years. Rod has become quite a blogger himself, and the move from print to digital for Shenandoah was quiet and consistent. They regularly produced new issues, blogged about the work, and made the literary offerings from the last 12 issues free and open to anyone with a browser. What’s more, every time I work on Shenandoah it makes me think of Claudia Emerson, the late poet and friend, who got me the gig thanks to the work I did with her literary journals class. Can’t think of too many better people or teachers I have ever met. The recent issue features a powerful reminder how many hearts Claudia lives in.

BEYOND AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Claudia Emerson Through Three Poems on Race

So my work for the Shenandoah gladly continues.  There will be a day when Rod retires and a new crew comes in and rethinks the site, but until then this is one of the projects I’ve been a part of over the last 6 years that has been truly grounding. I am no literary expert, but I like doing my small part to get a little more imaginative thinking and writing out on the web.

Anyway, after Rod reached out about the upcoming issue I realized this was the sixth year we’ve been doing this, so I got curious about the numbers. I’ve been tracking the site in Google Analytics since the beginning, and just two weeks ago the site hit the 1 million page view mark, with almost half a million visitors, and 600,000 sessions. What’s been most interesting to me about these numbers is the growth over the last two years to get almost 20,000 hits a month during the semester. That is 4x as many as in 2013, and twice as many during 2014. The last half of 2015, all of 2016, and the first few months of 2017 have suggested the journal has grown a pretty significant readership. That said, numbers on the web can be meaningless when you look at how many times Gangham Style was been viewed any given week. But Shenandoah abides, and twice a year you’ll get an outpouring of new literary work to the web, and that’s what I like about it.


  • She was also kind enough to let me pay her in erratic installments given those were the very lean years for the bavas. 

5 Years of Shenandoah Online

Screenshot 2016-04-07 23.37.58

Shenandoah

One of the projects I started working on more than five years ago was bringing the Shenandoah Literary Magazine online. I got the gig thanks to the late and very great Claudia Emerson, who I had been working with on a literary journals class at UMW. Many smarter than me can speak to Claudia’s legacy as a poet, but I can and will testify to what an awesome teacher and person she was. I miss her regularly.

Claudia Emerson

Claudia Emerson

In the Summer of 2010 I started working with Rod Smith, the editor of Shenandoah, and he agreed to move the journal to a WordPress multisite instance that Martha Burtis and I designed. Screenshot 2016-04-07 23.15.43

Five years later it’s still going strong, in fact it has steadily been picking up traffic since 2011 when it first took the plunge online. What’s more, I have a very agreeable relationship with Rod. We work pretty well together, and I think we’ve made a fairly good team. I enjoy managing the site so that he can introduce a new cadre of Washington & Lee University students to the journal each semester. These students help bring some excellent writers  to the open web gratis. It also keeps me connected to the work I did with Claudia for the literary journals course. That was the most praxis-oriented course I’d ever been a part of, and I loved it. We had four or five groups of students per class that were tasked with both conceptualizing and creating a full blown literary journal in less than 15 weeks.

My own teaching was greatly influenced by Claudia’s willingness to experiment and explore, and after we ran the Literary Journals course together for a couple of semesters I got the offer to teach CPSC 106 (what would soon after forever be known as ds106!). In a strange convergence, at the same time I was working on Shenandoah’s first online issue, a bunch of us got the idea to bring ds106 to the open web as well. And while my work with ds106 and Shenandoah has been very different, in my mind they are deeply connected. So early this week we pulled the trigger on the tenth online issue signaling the fifth year of Shenandoah online. Time flies when you are populating the internet with both high (Shenandoah) and low (ds106) CULTURE!!!


Shenandoah’s Noir Issue Logo

SHENANDOAH_NOIRI’ve been working with the Shenandoah literary magazine for a while now, and next week they launch their noir issue. The editor, Rod Smith, asked me to try and come up with a logo/ad for Poetry Daily, and given it’s design week in ds106 I figured I would share what I did here.

If I were to be counting stars, this would be a one, maybe 2, star design assignment. Rather than creating my own logo, I went to The Noun Project and found this “Smoking” icon by Martin Vanco. It oozes noir, so I simply paid $1.99 for the rights to use it without attribution. After that, I grabbed the free Pulp Fiction font from dafont.com and combined the two in GIMP. In just a few quick steps,  I had myself a quick and easy logo that looks fairly professional. All I had to do is arrange the pieces.

I think this is valuable lesson you might take from ds106: part of being to be an artist of and on the web is knowing where to find and how to recombine things. Making art isn’t only about creating, it’s also about knowing, connecting, and recombining what’s already out there. I should get at least 2 stars for knowing, right? And so should you if you now know :)


Shenandoah Three Years On

Shenandoah Literary ReviewWashington and Lee’s Literary Review Shenandoah started making its transition from a print to an entirely online publication almost three years ago. I know this because I helped the editor, Rod T. Smith, imagine what it would mean to move into the online world. I’ve blogged about this a few times before. Three years later I’m still working on Shenandoah, although its pretty much run itself for the last two years. I remain involved because it’s one of those compelling testaments to the awesome contemporary culture you can access freely on the web. The latest issue is just the most recent example of what’s been freely published online since Fall 2011 (five issues in all, and the sixth comes out this Spring).

Screen Shot 2013-12-11 at 4.55.13 PMBut what I wanted to mention here quickly is that this semester the site, issue, and blog had a different vibe than I’ve seen so far. The student interns who helped run the journal as part of a course started to really take over the site. They pushed the various weekly and daily features hard on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. The “Poem of the Week” became a staple on Facebook, and drove regular traffic to the site that led to more people discovering the most recent issue. They also did an amazing job taking turns to make sure Shenandoah‘s blog was regularly updated with their thoughts and insights about the state of literature.

They also did an excellent job populating the “Words of Wisdom” quote generator on the frontpage with some awesome quotes.

Words of Wisdom 4Screen Shot 2013-12-11 at 5.36.03 PM

Words of Wisdom 1 Screen Shot 2013-12-11 at 5.36.33 PM

Screen Shot 2013-12-11 at 4.54.38 PMThe site has started to take on a sense of vibrancy that seems directly related to the students’ engagement and excitement. The way they used Facebook, for example, was awesome. The did Halloween “unmasking” posts that featured each of the student interns process while preparing for the launch of the latest issue. They were compelling because they framed a person’s experience bringing this issue to life. What’s more, it highlights how a digital literary journal like Shenandoah can be effectively promoted through social media. These students literally doubled the traffic to Shenandoah over the coruse of the semester, and they seemed to have a lot of fun doing it while gaining invaluable experience for publishing in the new world. We can talk all day about the technology and platforms (which I understand the importance of given my own purview as a technologist), but nothing can replace the excitement and passion of a group of students to make something feel special and relevant. Their takeover of the site this semester gave the online features soul, and kudos to Rod for letting it flourish.

Turns out Shenandoah is not only a gem for the contemporary literary world, it’s also a gem for teaching and learning in our digital moment. I’m really enjoying this because what could have (and for many was) been seen as a loss might now be understood as a rebirth of open access literature, enagagement for the publication, and  empowerment for the students running it. Very cool.


Fan Fiction and Parody

From music to poetry and prose, the practice of artists sampling other artists’ work is nothing new.

Shrek(1)

When a song tops the Billboard charts, it is only a matter of time before it gets chewed up and spat back out in some variant form. The Monkees’ 1966 number one hit “I’m a Believer” was given new life in Smash Mouth’s early-2000’s rendition, featured in the movie Shrek. (I’m ashamed to say that for a long time I was unaware that this wasn’t originally Smash Mouth’s song). In 2009, American rapper Flo Rida produced his number one single “Right Round,” which was more than loosely based on the 80’s pop hit “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by the British group Dead or Alive.

Similarly, popular books are often rewritten in various iterations. The old adage “if you build it, they will come” is never more true than in the case of literary franchises—if there is money to be made or fame to be had, there will be someone willing to make a remix or parody of a written work.

As explained by Chauncey Baker in a previous Snopes blog post, literary pastiche sometimes takes the form of “fan fiction.” Popular books are given new life, thereby generating new sales; the Twilight series becomes Fifty Shades of Grey one, two, and three, as well as Nightlight: A Parody, New Moan, etc. In a quest to fill the ever-expanding “paranormal romance” genre (aka vampire novels), Wuthering Heights becomes Wuthering Bites and Jane Eyre becomes Jane Slayre.

fifty-shades-of-grey-cac1d39d5bb5c20810b1314bcbf61dee35d8219b-s6-c30Beyond basic fan fiction, however, and more interesting still (in my opinion) are parodies of parodies. Itself a parody, Fifty Shades of Grey has morphed into its own franchise and spun in a multitude of directions, including Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy, Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey, Fifty Shades of Pink (complete with sparkles and unicorns!), A Coupla Shades of Taupe, and—my personal favorite—Fifty Shades of Chicken (a cookbook). Many of these seem to me like they’d be a stretch, at best…realistically, how big could the market for these books be? And yet no one would write them if the readers weren’t out there.

Why are we, as readers, so drawn to works that closely imitate other works? Do we value parodies as literary works in their own right? Or are we merely creatures of habit who are more comfortable with tried-and-true plotlines than original compositions? More to the point: is it even possible to still compose a truly original composition, or have all the “good ideas” been used up? Although parodies seem to catch a lot of flak (in spite of its shocking success, you’re apt to hear at least 5 people criticizing Fifty Shades for every one person who likes it), they also carry an undeniable appeal. Personally, I love a good parody. Last year, I bought my nephew Goodnight Moon…along with the more contemporary version, Goodnight iPad for Christmas. My brother and sister-in-law have also introduced me to Go the F**k to Sleep, a charming and hilarious just-for-adults parody of a typical children’s bedtime story. I am even the proud owner of a parody volume entitled Twitterature, in which literary classics (think Shakespeare, Salinger, Byron, Dostoyevsky) are told in a series of twenty (or fewer) tweets, each under 140 characters.

I’d love to hear your thoughts regarding any of the parodies above, or even parodies in general. Do you love literary parodies, or do you love to hate them? Do you have a favorite? Leave a response in the comments below!


The Rise of Fan Fiction

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then perhaps Shakespeare didn’t roll over in his grave and groan when Dreamworks retold his classic play Twelfth Night in the form of a high school romantic comedy. Questions of authenticity and originality have been on the forefront of literary concern with works like Fifty Shades of Grey gaining a widespread fan base outside of its initially niche market of middle-aged housewives. Its popularity has little to do with its roots as an AU, or “alternate universe” Twilight fan fiction, originally published on the web and then picked up for publication.  This is not the first instance of fan fiction being published reputably. Sherlock Holmes, a beloved character created by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, became public domain and immediately short stories and books appeared using the famous the sleuth as a main or side character. People can publish books like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes where an author would crossover two worlds of fiction for a greater depth of plot. More recently, an RPF, or “real person fiction”, written by a teenage girl about her imaginary adventures with the band One Direction was picked for publication. Obviously some names must be changed and certain details blurred, but that does not change the story’s origins.

Fan fiction is not just limited to the page as many works have been adapted and re-adapted for the big or small screen. Sherlock Holmes was recently reset in the modern era by the BBC, and CBS quickly followed with their hit show, Elementary. Is it a lack of imagination that leads us to reuse old plot devices or perhaps a simple fascination with untold stories that drives people to retell a story previously told? As far back as Ancient Greece, people have been using well-known stories for their own creative ends. Sophocles brought Oedipus to life on stage, but not a single audience member would have entered the theatre without any knowledge of the Oedipus story. They attended for the same reason people watch the fifth remake of Pride and Prejudice.  A timeless story fascinates its audience to the point of inspiration.

Authors are allowed to publish novel “remixes” like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies using a great deal of the original works text and adding passages of their own. Works like this are not derivative. They are extensions of a pre-existing, already created universe manipulated to meet a new artist’s needs.  Some works have elements of fan fiction but cannot be classified as such since the original artist has given permission for alterations. This occurs in the adaptation of book to film. The Lord of the Rings films are not fan fiction. They may have previously nonexistent elements that someone has arbitrarily decided to include, but these changes are also the casualties caused by the transfer from one medium to another.

Fan fiction, and fan works, pervade the modern entertainment spheres. New books retelling fairy tales and re-imagining classic novels are being written every day with varying degrees of success.  I have The Eyre Affair and Death Comes to Pemberley patiently waiting on my Kindle for a rainy day and even though neither Austen nor Brontë had a hand in the crafting of these novels, I’m still pretty excited to read them.

– Chauncey Baker


Rediscovering “Ars Poetica” -Annie Persons

On Wednesday, I led my first creative writing workshop with sixth graders at the local middle school. As I signed in, nerves that had nothing to do with the school’s stringent security system quickened my pulse. I experienced an alarming flashback to my own pre-adolescent days, which was followed by a wave of nausea. I walked through the halls, trotting at the heels of the kindly but over-worked coordinator, clutching my hand-written lesson plan and feeling smaller by the minute.

Entering Mrs. Johnson’s fifth-period English class, I felt a room full of 12-year-old eyes drill into me, sizing me up. So it was to my surprise that, when she inquired, a handful of the girls and one boy stood up to accompany “Miss Persons” to the other classroom. Miss Persons. My first order of business, after arranging the desks into an intimate circle, was granting them permission to call me Miss Annie.

As soon as we started talking about poetry, my nerves disappeared; it was like another self took over. I didn’t realize until halfway through the session that I had abandoned my lesson plan. Their innocent excitement reminded me of one of poetry’s vital elements: communication. Poetry isn’t just about reading and writing. One of the best things about poetry is its ability to foster discussion and even excitement.

Steve_webPoet Steve Scafidi affirmed this notion during his reading at Washington and Lee on Tuesday. He said that writing a good poem involves evoking this sense of communication between author and reader, finding that intimate connection that comes from allowing your own mind to venture into the author’s world on the page. He referenced Horace’s “Ars Poetica,” where the speaker describes the process of writing a poem, and how a poem should be a unified and controlled entity:

“…painters and poets
Have always shared the right to dare anything.’
I know it: I claim that licence, and grant it in turn:
But not so the wild and tame should ever mate,
Or snakes couple with birds, or lambs with tigers”

Scafidi proceeded to read a poem of his own that responds to “Ars horacePoetica.” His poem illustrates dolphins diving through a forest and other disjointed but beautiful images. While he read, I saw those dolphins. Scafidi evoked poetry’s ability to illuminate the odd and unexpected—even within the author. I discovered this creativity and unexpected excitement in my sixth graders. I am looking forward to learning more about them through their poems and joining with them in that artistic communion. With these children guiding me, I want reignite my own sixth grade creativity and excitement. I want to channel this energy into my own writing and let it expand into all areas of my life.

– Annie Persons


Annie Persons is currently the managing editor for Shenandoah. She is a junior English major and Creative Writing minor at Washington and Lee University. Her favorite pastimes are reading and writing, and she hopes to continue engaging with literature for the rest of her life.

Poetry’s Possible Worlds -Annie Persons

This summer, I worked as a research assistant for Professor Lesley Wheeler, helping her compile sources for her scholarly book about speculative poetry titled Poetry’s Possible Worlds. “Speculative” poetry is a genre encompassing science fiction, fantasy, horror, and related “weird” subgenres. My research this summer taught me that speculative elements hide where you would least expect them.

Robert FrostIn my twentieth-century American poetry class, we recently read a selection of Robert Frost poems. Frost maintains a reputation as of the most well known American poets of the past century. His poems abound with natural and bucolic imagery; his work seems to deal exclusively with the fundamental themes of marital love, manual labor, and home. However, this summer taught me to see Frost in a new light. Rather, my new speculative lenses illuminate Frost’s darkness. “Mending Wall,” one of his most famous poems, concerns an ambiguity about walls and boundaries. The speaker associates tradition with darkness, and even a weird sense of magic:

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. (35-38)

If elves aren’t speculative, I don’t know what is. Here, Frost utilizes magic’s weird sense of possibility to highlight his uncertainty. The speaker wants his neighbor to recognize the magic force that seeks to destroy the boundary between them, but he can’t pinpoint a name for this magic either.

Frost isn’t the only traditional poet I have noticed employing speculative elements. It seems as though the more I think about it, the more I notice authors toying with notions of uncertainty and possibility that come with magic. It makes sense—a poem is a perfect environment for magic, as part of the poem’s job is to lure the reader into its structural and semantic world. One vein of Poetry’s Possible Worlds discusses how speculative poems demonstrate a marked ability to ensnare readers; poetic rhythm works together with imagery to draw us into the poem’s world through a process called entrainment. I researched the cognitive side of this process, but also dwelled on the concept of how creating an alternate space in a literary work provides the reader not just with a sense of escape, but also with a heightened sense of communion with the author-creator of the alternative world.

This communion has power. By engaging in the immersive process of reading speculative poetry, the reader engages with the mind of the poet, often reemerging changed in some way. Poetry’s ability to change the way I see things and provide momentary escape from the chaos of reality is why I love it. Poetry, especially speculative poetry, changes the way I see my own world. Even if you are skeptical of speculative genres, I encourage you to look for the magic hiding in unexpected places, not just in poetry, but also in your own life. Look for walls. Notice elves.

– Annie Persons


Annie Persons is currently the managing editor for Shenandoah. She is a junior English major and Creative Writing minor at Washington and Lee University. Her favorite pastimes are reading and writing, and she hopes to continue engaging with literature for the rest of her life.

Possibilities in Poetry -Katie Toomb

And my junior year begins.  While I will admit that I was anxiously awaiting summer vacation by the time May rolled around last year, I have to say that I have never been more excited for a school year to start up again than I am this year.  Along with having the opportunity to participate in creating the upcoming issue of Shenandoah, I am also taking classes for my English major that I have absolutely loved so far. One of these classes focuses on twentieth-century American poetry.

Letter with pen and glasses 1

This poetry class was the course I was both excited for yet nervous about in equal measure.  Poetry can be intimidating, and after a four-year break during which I took solely literature based courses, I found myself feeling extremely anxious as school crept closer about the prospect of re-immersing myself in the vastly different world of poetry.  After taking so many literature classes, I am now comfortable with its format and the various ways in which one can seek to interpret meaning from a novel.  Poetry, however, is a whole new ballgame, full of new terms and aspects to be analyzed.  The scariest of these new realms that I have been attempting to familiarize myself with has been meter.  After taking a Shakespeare course last winter, I have found myself unconsciously attempting to force all the poetry I have read thus far to fit the only meter I am currently comfortable with: iambic pentameter.  Obviously, this method isn’t working out too well for me so far.  After only two days of this poetry class, the sheer expanse of poetic knowledge that I have yet to comprehend is somewhat daunting.  However, I find myself looking forward to expanding my limited knowledge despite my nerves.

Even though my knowledge of the technical side of poetry is limited, I have always loved reading it.  I am fascinated by its ability to mean something different to every person who reads it.  With literature, there is a basic message built into the plot that the author lays out for the reader to find and relate to.  With poetry, finding a message is much more personal.  While literature is based upon an idea created in an author’s mind, poetry seems to be the product of a poet’s soul.  Reading poetry feels a lot like I imagine reading a person’s diary would feel like.  The characters and events don’t seem make-believe, but feel very grounded in reality.  This intimate aspect of poetry is what I love most about it, as I find myself emotionally engaged in the words I am reading in a way that the distant, “movie-like” view present in literature prevents.  With poetry, I am living the words rather than viewing them as an outsider.  While being so emotionally engaged in the thoughts of someone else can be overwhelming, the contemplative nature of poetry is also what makes it so exciting.

I cannot wait for a term full of introspection.

– Katie Toomb


Annie Persons is currently the managing editor for Shenandoah. She is a junior English major and Creative Writing minor at Washington and Lee University. Her favorite pastimes are reading and writing, and she hopes to continue engaging with literature for the rest of her life.