Bold in Italics creates opportunities for NPHS students
The Bold in Italics Literary Magazine club has been around for several years, analyzing and submitting poems, photos and short stories from authors and artists all around Newbury Park High School. Allowing people to express their creative outlets, the club reviews all kinds of submissions, whilst deciding which ones to submit every Wednesday at lunch in room B-2.
Ashley Solano, senior and vice president of the literary magazine, joined the staff two years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic that prevented in-person club meetings. Solano recalls amazing submissions during the pandemic, most having a theme of managing stress. Although the staff selects themes for each magazine, students can submit works from a wide variety of genres. “The magazine is not completely all over the place, but you can submit pretty much anything you want,” Solano said.
Carolyn Duc, junior and secretary of the Bold in Italics club, also joined the magazine’s staff two years ago. Duc expresses how exciting the magazine is, as it is not as demanding as your typical journalism class. “I think that the magazine is definitely a good way to kind of take part in journalism because it’s not a class. So you can participate even if you have tons of other stuff on your schedule,” Duc said. The club has been welcoming of new students who are interested in writing, or English in general. “I think for accepting new people, we’re pretty chill, and we kind of let anybody in, even if you don’t stay throughout the entire year,” Duc said.
Lucia Lemieux, English 12 CP teacher and advisor for the Bold in Italics magazine, started advising the club back in 2014 when the staff was mostly composed of creative writing students. Later, in 2015, Lemieux decided to make the club official, naming it “Bold in Italics. “The fact that we didn’t have a literary magazine bothered me…I had 40 creative writing students, it was a huge class and so many of them were so talented,” Lemieux said. The club creates an outlet for students to express themselves and a space for those whose voice has been disregarded at times. “Seeing the creativity, and artistry of so many of our students who may not have been recognized in other areas, they may not be athletes or academically strong, but they’re still creative people who have a contribution to make,” Lemieux said.
Recently, the magazine staff received an award from the American Scholastic Press Association, an annually hosted magazine competition. The competition requires three examples of their magazine work, whilst they only published twice a year, forcing the staff to look back at some of their issues published during the pandemic. Winning the competition as a first time entry was especially remarkable for the staff. ”It’s very rare for a first time entry to even win anything, so we were very proud of that,” Lemieux said.
