Capstone Ideas

For my final project, I really want to do something that showcases my most significant accomplishments at Lewis University; I want my project to be about the thing that I am most passionate about, the thing that drives to me get an education. During my time as an undergraduate English major, I developed a special interest in poetry and indie publishing, which go together like bread and butter. I have my creative writing classes and my internship at Jet Fuel Review to thank for my discovering of my specialization in the English field, a field that is extremely vast. Poetry is my form of creation and editing a literary journal also promotes the creation of art which makes me feel like I am somehow positively contributing to society--I believe that literature and other art forms can help better our world and to be a catalyst in the distribution of a wide variety of art forms gives me solace not only as an editor, but as a person. Creating my own art and showcasing other people's is something that I feel nurtures a progressive and stable world because art is an organic reflection of what it means to live and is part of the solution to a better experience in doing so. For my final project for Senior Seminar, I would like to somehow fuse my work in my creative writing classes with my work as managing editor of Jet Fuel Review because those have been my most impactful experiences as an English major at Lewis. I have produced two chapbooks within these past three years and will have written five manuals for Jet Fuel by the time I graduate. I obviously haven't worked out all of the kinks quite yet, but I would like to eventually fuse the JFR manual and my first (and most in need of editing) chapbook of poetry together in digital form. Creating a chapbook is an old and very hands-on process and I would like to still create a chapbook with just as much haptic intimacy required when manually stitching together each book in digital form. Chapbook-making is a tedious, but personal, process because each copy is made by hand and I would like to create that same personal effect of a chapbook, except on a digital platform as opposed to a tangible one. I would also like to figure out a way to make the JFR manual more digital-friendly. JFR understands the importance of digital media because we are an entirely online publication and I would like to somehow contribute to our ever-expanding media presence by designing a manual on indie publishing for all future editors that is more multi-modal than the current template.