Andromeda, the school’s literary arts magazine, is a work of creative journalism that showcases the school’s talents through art and writing. It comes out every year along with the yearbook. Andromeda features work ranging from poems to short stories and hand-drawn sketches to photographs.

“In the past, it has been something that has been attached to yearbook and newspaper and it does a lot of similar things to those two organizations,” new Andromeda Adviser Jordan Fremuth said. “It is also very different in several ways. The creativity is more central in LitMag.”

The Andromeda staff meets on Tuesdays to discuss fundraising, advertising and design in order to produce a high quality magazine.

“We review submissions that students from our school create and we match them together and create a magazine using all the students’ amazing work,” senior and editor-in-chief Alisha Compton said. “We want to showcase the abilities of the students at our school and help everyone see how talented we know they are.”

Andromeda is a way of expressing creativity for both the submitters and the Andromeda staff. The submitters express creativity through their work while the staff uses their work to create an express their creativity through designing.

“I am looking forward for getting people to send in art and I also want to submit some of my art,” sophomore Priscilla Yun said. “I want to learn new ways to design because I’m really into graphic designing and I think Andromeda will help me with that.”

The Andromeda staff also learns many things that help them both in school and other extra-curricular activities.

“I joined because I’m in yearbook and Andromeda would be another way for me to practice graphic design,” Yun said.

Other students join Andromeda because they are passionate about many different elements of the magazine.

“I love reading and writing and I think Andromeda is a really creative way to express yourself and express the abilities of our school,” Compton said.

This year, Andromeda is going through many changes. One of the biggest changes is the new sponsor.

“There are a couple things that went into my decision to take over the sponsorship. Most of all, I consider myself to be a creative person,” Fremuth said “I feel like I have something to offer to the students involved.”

Fremuth is qualified for this position and hopes to use his experience as an English teacher to make Andromeda. Aside from being an English teacher, with a degree in creative non-fiction, Fremuth has interned at a high school in Pittsburgh where he helped their literary arts magazine.

Other changes include the submission process. It has been altered to make it easier for more students to submit.

“I want this year’s magazine to be a lot more holistic. We are trying to get people from all over the school so we can capture any little jewel a student may have created,” Compton said. “Additionally, we are changing our submission so we can have an online submission so you can submit electronically since that’s what our society is moving toward as a whole.”

The new system will encourage more students to submit as they can submit whenever and wherever they are.

“The submission forms now have QR codes that enables them to scan that and fill out a google forum wherever they are,” Fremuth said. “The goal with that is that digital submissions tend to be a lot easier if students have something that they have written on their notes function on their phones they can copy and post it in there and hopefully this will be a little but more wide ranging.”

Another change is the implementation of “Free Write Feburary.” Throughout the month, English teachers have the opportunity give students different prompts which give the students  an opportunity to  express their creativity through poems, short stories and opinionated articles. This year  Andromeda will also give an opportunity to foreign language students to showcase their work in both the respective foreign language and English.

The staff as a whole has goals for Andromeda so it will be a great magazine.

“The staff is full of creative people and those creative juices will be put in the right places. I think we’ll go a long way and be a  successful magazine,” Fremuth said. “The Andromeda staff is full of well-intentioned and creative people who are really passionate about creative outlets.”

Andromeda hopes to encourage students to showcase their work so others can enjoy the pieces of work they have created.

“I hope Andromeda is a really successful magazine,” Compton said. “I hope it captures not only the culture but the spirit of the school and the students within it.”