South’s literary arts magazine, Calliope, has been in production for over 30 years, Amie Elliott, Calliope Sponsor and Fine Arts Teacher, said. Calliope started out as a half-fold piece of paper with poetry, but has since evolved to include paintings, digital art, and even videos and songs through QR codes. 

Calliope meets once a week on Wednesdays to edit pieces submitted by non club members, junior Mina Kim, Junior Editor-in-Chief, said. Editors work on the magazine throughout the year, and at the end of each semester, an issue is published, she added. Each issue, members choose a theme that can have a wide variety of interpretations, Kim explained.  

“First, we brainstorm theme ideas.” Kim said. “[We] vote and choose one in the end. [Then] people start putting in submissions and we look through them [to] see which ones fit the [theme] best.”

Anyone can submit a piece for the magazine, as members try to include as many diverse ideas as possible, Elliott explained. After selecting submissions, editors begin the creation of the physical magazine, she added.

“[Calliope has] a team of editors,” Elliott said. “Each editor has a team that works with them [that] look at [submissions] as a group. They have a rubric that they evaluate [each submission with, where they ask] how close it is to meeting the theme? How original is it? Does it flow?”

The most important aspect of the magazine is how well each piece works with the theme, so it is key that themes can be adapted in different ways, Elliott explained. 

“[The theme for this issue is ] Lost to Time – not “lost in time”,” Elliott said. “It could be about memories, it could be about a time you wished you lived in or a time you wish you could experience. There’s a lot of ways to interpret it.”