James River High School recently announced that the school’s literary magazine, “Currents,” is now available in digital form.
The most recent edition combines the best of 2020’s and 2021’s student submissions. Last year, James River English teacher Lori Wingo and her students began the layout portion of the 2020 edition. Still, they weren’t about to finish the project due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
“We were just getting into the layout, and they shut the schools down,” Wingo said. “We didn’t publish, so this year, I got permission from (James River Principal) Dr. (Lisa) Taylor to publish a double issue.”
Wingo explained that she went back into the 2020 submissions and pulled from a group of talented writers and artists. She tried to pair new submissions with old ones from 2019-20, which gives this year’s 56-page magazine content and perspective from students pre- and post-pandemic.
This year’s edition contains poetry, short stories, and art. Still, Wingo explained that moving forward, thanks to the new software (LucidPress) used to publish the magazine, new forms of media may find their way into the publication.
“Now that we have this new software, we can now start embedding not only visual content but also the fine arts– music (files) or dance choreography (video),” Wingo continued.
Wingo just completed her third year of helping the James River students publish “Currents.” She’s amazed seeing the creative development of her students and looks forward to expanding the genres of art presented within the magazine in the years to come.
“Currents” is currently available online through James River’s school website under the “Announcements” tab at https://jrhs.bcps.k12.va.us/announcements.
