Bruce Whealton: Existential Writing

People have been publishing poetry magazines on the web for some time.  During this time, the online version of a magazine, made me think that perhaps the name “magazine” didn’t fit for what we were publishing.  I’m very open to new ways of looking at things but a magazine just didn’t quite seem like the word to describe an online publication of poetry.  That has changed.  I found a new tool, or application, that creates online books and magazines on the web.  They run in the Flash player on the web.  I wasn’t worried about that because 98% or thereabouts, of all internet users have the required version of this software, necessary to run these applications,  installed on their computer, and so they are going to see what I publish just as I intend it to appear.

So, this tool, or type of tool (there are different designs that implement this in very similar ways), presents on the web page, an interactive application that looks like a magazine or book.  You can have a cover, and then open up the book to different pages.  When you open up the book/magazine (let me use book as a general term to refer to magazines or books in this format), you see  a two page spread.  One can even include the sounds of turning  a page.  One can drag the corner of a page or click on the next button to move to the next page.  I find it very exciting and creative.  I feel I can be creative with this application or type of application.

To see an example of how this works and how I implemented this on Word Salad please click on this link here:  http://wordsaladpoetrymagazine.com/VolumeXIVNoIV/books-published-by-word-salad.html
I setup two categories.  The first category will be for the different versions of Word Salad that are published on the site, specifically, Volume XIV, No IV, the winter 2008-2009 edition.  I will be adding other editions as well, in that category.  I’ll post the next upcoming edition as a book/magazine in this format, soon after the newest edition of Word Salad comes out next on March 21, 2009, and then I’ll add other previous issues as options that you can view here.  The other category is titled “Other Poetry Publications.”  Here I have published two collections of poetry by Jean Jones and one by myself.  These are not complete yet, as new pages are being added.  These collections by Jean Jones, for example, which were published by St. Andrews press, have additional poems included.

Again that link is:  http://wordsaladpoetrymagazine.com/VolumeXIVNoIV/books-published-by-word-salad.html

Allow me to add that this software, needed to implement this, is not free.  So, we are asking for donations or to support us, please purchase a print version of Word Salad on our Lulu.com storefront here:  http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2331883