I ran an online and print magazine in high school with several friends called Carnegiea Literary Magazine. Our mission was to build a publishing and outreach platform directed at the many young artists in Southern Arizona. Among other things, I learned through this experience that I was interested in the intersection of art, business, and technology.
I built and maintained our website where we accepted submissions from and published hundreds of young artists, varying from poetry to photography to paintings and screenplay scripts. We self-published two printed issues of the magazine, holding a release event and local artist market at the University of Arizona Poetry Center. In the beginning of the pandemic, we published an online Winter Webzine that can still be accessed at carnegiealitmag.com/winterwebzine.
We also hosted a pop-up art gallery at the Loft Cinema, where many artists were able to bring and sell originals and prints of their artwork. Our team also put together art prints for some artists who were unable to afford the printing costs and splitting the profits. In total, we were able to raise thousands of dollars for both our magazine and paid out to small independent artists.
From this experience, I learned several things about myself: I love helping artists get published and finally get paid for their work, I enjoy and am good at the managerial aspects of running a small team with a public focused mission, and I had way too much fun building our website, running our file management and submission system, and designing book layouts.
