“We long to reach our fingers out and feel the reverberations through the empty air of a heart that is not our own. We yearn enough to make the stars rush in towards us… ‘Blueshift’ is the yearning, the telltale sign that we have never been alone,” reads the mantra of “The Blueshift Journal,” a new literary arts magazine run by Andover students and alumni along with many other young artists throughout the nation.
Inspired by other online literary magazines and the promising writers they publish, Tyler Tsay ’15 and recent graduate Claire Carroll ’14 sought to create another outlet for aspiring writers and artists. After Tsay and Carroll joined forces with Lily Rockefeller ’14 at the beginning of the summer, the three students began to pull together a staff and begin the publication.
“Through our own writing and through my roles in other school and outside publications, we witnessed firsthand the expansive nature of the literary world,” said Tyler Tsay in an email to The Phillipian. “There were hundreds of online publications out there, most of them leaving us in constant awe. Some of them touched us, made us see the world just a small bit differently each day.”
Tyler Tsay was particularly inspired by high-quality publications run by students, and he, Carroll and Rockefeller decided to create a magazine of their own to provide an opportunity for young writers to showcase their work.
“The world of young writers has been very popular recently, with literary workshops and magazines more popular than ever. With this increase in interest logically follows increased competition, especially among high school writers who are eager to create a diverse and impressive resume for college applications. We realized the stress this places on the prize rather than the poetry that won the prize, and so at ‘Blueshift’ we ask our writers to submit not to add to their laundry list of accomplishments, but rather for the sake of being able to share their work,” said Rockefeller.
Alexa Tsay ’17 is one of almost thirty members of the “Blueshift” staff, serving as an Art Reader. She shares her older brother’s passion for the literary world, but focuses on fine arts as opposed to written works, filtering through art submissions and must choose which ones to utilize in the upcoming issue.
“I look for pieces that work as a whole. Color scheme, composition, contrast, complexity and style are some factors that play into whether I accept or reject a submission,” she said.
“Blueshift” distinguishes itself primarily through its approach to submissions. Unlike many well-known literary magazines, the staff of “Blueshift” selects pieces without any knowledge of the submitter’s past accomplishments in an effort to give newcomers an equal footing.
“We’re brand new, and though we might have some preconceived idea of what the magazine is going to look like, it’s all up to the submitters,” said Tyler Tsay. “However, we do like to hook onto the theme of connection. The term ‘blueshift’ itself is about how things in space look differently depending on if they move closer or farther. We took this to represent shades of light, or perspective, and, with that idea of perspective, we focused on works that change perspectives.”
Rockefeller said, “In submissions, I look for prose, poetry and art that focuses on the theme of connection. In the ‘About Us’ portion of our webpage I wrote a piece about how at a fundamental level our electrons repel each other and how we are unable to ever truly touch. How, then, do we connect? Because we do — we connect, we love, we find a place in the world full of irregular orbits and whirring particles. We want work that shows us how this is possible.”
