Harwood students publish second online literary magazine before school year ends

June 11, 2020  |  By Riley Gallagher

This blue heron is the cover image for the second issue of the Harwood Union High School online literary magazine “The Silver Lining in a Distant World.” Photo by Taylor Quenneville.

Harwood Union High School creative writing students have published the second and final issue of the literary art magazine “The Silver Lining in a Distant World.”

The purpose of the project was to “[connect] with our community during an extraordinary time of isolation.” 

The project was done by two classes of mostly juniors and seniors with English teacher Steve Rand. Most of the pieces were written during the period of remote learning this spring. 

The 30-page digital magazine features work from 17 students, many of whom incorporated some form of artwork into their piece. They also had the option to follow the theme of “a silver lining.”

The cover image of the magazine is a photograph of a blue heron that inspired the poem “A Seventy Degree Breeze” by Taylor Quenneville, who shot the photo at the Winooski River.

Nearly every piece takes a page in the magazine. Rand suggested setting two poems apart -- “Back Porch” by Sam Crafts and “Barn Cat” by Riley Gallagher -- using two pages for each with the poem on one page opposite an image of a large ink spot.

The first online magazine was published in May. While this is the final issue of this school year, Rand said he would like to continue with a similar project in the upcoming school year.

Harwood senior Riley Gallagher was a student editor of “The Silver Lining in a Distant World” along with Angela Bywaters and Alex Pendo. The magazine can be found online here.