Lens Magazine, a new student-run publication at the University of Mississippi, invites students to see Oxford through a different perspective through themed collections of content across genres and art forms. The magazine plans to launch its premiere issue in the first week of October.
Editors in Chief Katherine Palmer and Emma McHard started Lens Magazine as a flexible alternative to other student-run outlets on campus.
“It’s a creative outlet, and each month is going to be based around a specific theme,” Palmer, a senior multidisciplinary studies major from San Diego, said. “It’s usually retro-based. So we will pick a theme, take the pictures … and then we’ll put out articles relating to it.”
Nostalgia is the focal point for the ‘70s-themed first release.
“I wanted to base it around the idea that when you look at your parents’ pictures, it feels so nostalgic and you weren’t even there, and that’s what I wanted to curate,” Palmer said.
Monthly issues of the magazine welcome student submissions of various content types, from paintings to essays.
“We have some poetry, we have some music-related articles, so it’s definitely a big variety,” McHard, a freshman journalism major from Hattiesburg, Miss., said. “Focus-wise, with the photography, it’s very nostalgic, very throwback.”
Palmer and McHard are welcoming students with a wide range of interests to contribute to Lens Magazine. The co-editors value adding members to their team who are willing to exercise a diverse skillset.
“We’ve got the creative part of it, writing, photography, and most of the people that are on (the magazine staff) are able to do everything, which is great,” Palmer said. “Really, any position that can be thought of with something like this, we are taking … Everyone on the team is so multifaceted. I think that not having a label on those positions means that they are able to ebb and flow and have a variety of their work shown.”
Palmer said Lens Magazine has only one label — being inclusive. She chose to launch a new publication that allows students to explore their creative abilities without strict guidelines. Deadlines, content types and norms for the magazine are all flexible.
“There’s so many different (student publications),” Palmer said. “I wanted to put something out that’s niche, but broad, where everyone’s able to put out that creative spark they have in whichever way they feel. I don’t think I’ve really seen that done because everything usually has a specific label, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid, is one specific label.”
McHard echoed a similar view of the new outlet. For creatives who feel like they do not have a place to put their work, she wants Lens Magazine to be the place.
“Like our motto of ‘See Oxford through a different lens,’ (Lens Magazine) really is (seeing Oxford through that different lens),” McHard said. “The magazine itself is so broad and carries so many broad subjects … We want to be a magazine for all of Oxford, for all Mississippi locals.”
Drew Roberts, a graduate student studying integrated marketing communications from Mobile, Ala., is submitting an article on the yacht rock music genre for the October issue, delving into the history of the genre and his affection for it. He values the experience that contributing to Lens Magazine from the start will provide for his early career.
“It’s the first (magazine) I saw on campus, and it seemed like it would be a good opportunity, especially just getting off the ground because there’s kind of a guarantee that you can get published,” Roberts said. “I’m excited to get to meet cool people and really showcase the literary side of Oxford.”
As a registered student organization (RSO), the editors worry about recent restrictions on Student Activity Fee (SAF) requests that will prevent them from accessing funding to physically print the magazine.
“Cut funding, obviously, was a massive hit to all student-run publications and clubs, which is very unfortunate and frustrating for a student-run magazine, specifically a print magazine,” McHard said. “We were going to have this mass-published thing, and now that’s a hurdle.”
Until access to SAF funds or other funding opportunities becomes available, Palmer and McHard hope to print only a few copies of the magazine each month and upload digital scans of print copies to the Lens Magazine website and social media accounts.
“We’ll print at least a few physical copies for people on the team to have as keepsakes until we figure out printing on a broader scale,” McHard said. “Then, I’m going to scan the physical copy so that you see the creases on the page and that you are truly looking at a magazine and flipping through a magazine — it’s the physical copy made digital.”
Lens Magazine held its first photo shoot for the October issue on the top floor of the UM Residential Parking Garage on Thursday, Sept. 18, with six new members of the organization.
“Everyone was so sweet and so willing, and shooting the photos and the content was so much fun,” McHard said. “You could tell that they were passionate about it, as well … It really helped us see that this publication is in motion, and it’s building this community already, so early on with Lens. It’s starting to feel like this is real.”
Many UM students anticipate the magazine’s release. Nadia Durant, a junior elementary education major from Calhoun City, Miss., is ready to read Lens Magazine’s first issue.
“I think it’s something that students will look forward to each month,” Durant said. “It seems to have themes that people I know would be eager to read, things you’d want to engage with.”
“The whole basis is on building a community, keeping Oxford weird and seeing it through a different lens,” McHard said. “Building a community of creatives and possibly throwing events in the future to bring these creatives together is going to show people that we have this niche, weird, cool artistic community that I don’t think most people perceive Oxford having.”
Editor’s note: This story was corrected to say that Katherine Palmer is a senior rather than a junior.
