 Hi and welcome to the show. I'm your host Patrick Shearer and you're watching in the studio. The show is brought to you by Davis Media Access and is broadcast on Davis Community Television. That's Comcast Channel 15 and AT&T Uverse. We're also online at davismedia.org, so log on and check us out. My guests today are Shelby Zakardi and Elsie Young from Spectra Magazine. Hi guys and thanks for joining us. Hi, thanks for having us. So what is Spectra? Well Spectra is actually a charitable magazine run completely by students here in Davis that hopes to bridge communities and increase understanding between people by sharing their stories. So what we do is we go out and we try to collect stories from people in the community and then publish them in hopes that with this new understanding of people reading each other's stories we can create a better and more peaceful world. And so we're hoping to connect or collect stories from both the local community here in Sacramento as well as abroad. And then eventually we're going to distribute our magazine again here locally and also abroad. Fantastic. So where did the spark come from? Where did the idea start? Actually our founder, who is also our editor in chief, can't be here tonight. But she came up with this idea through this project called Global Journal Project which we tried to become a part of but due to some legal matters and some district policies we couldn't actually do that. So we decided to take that idea and run with it and create it our own. So we decided to create our own magazine called Spectra Magazine and we incorporated some of the ideas from this Global Journal Project but we also incorporated a lot of our own and tried to make it our own pretty much. So tell us about how the two differ. What have you taken from the Global Journal Project and what have you taken from your own inspiration? So the main objective of the Global Journal Project was, like we said before to gather stories from the community and publish them in a magazine that would then be distributed in the student's local community as well as abroad. And so that was the main idea that we took away from it. Yeah, but we also tried to bring in this whole connectedness as our own. So we created our own mission statement and we created our own mission that differs slightly from the Global Journal Project. So our mission is to connect communities rather than just publish them. Great. And how long have you been publishing for? Actually we just had our first publication last month on January 27. Oh, now it's not your first, was that the first print or the first one ever? First one ever, actually. We're very new. Wow. And so that actually isn't a print issue, that's just an online only issue for now. But yeah, it's really exciting. It was our first big publication that we're very excited about. Fantastic. Yeah. Now do any of you have any previous experience with, you know, publishing or writing or magazines or anything like that? Not outside of the classroom, no. Our editor-in-chief does, she worked at the Davis High School newspaper for a while. And we also, most of our editors are also editors on the hub, the Davis newspaper. But other than that, none of us have really done this before. Okay. And everyone's a volunteer, aren't they? Exactly. Yeah. Was it difficult finding people to be part of the project or kind of, you know, once you got the idea, you know, was it fairly easy to kind of rally people to the cause? It's actually something we're working on right now. We're trying to gather more and more people. We have a group of about 15 students right now. And that group, it was actually fairly easy to gather those people just because of people we knew, you know, our editor-in-chief started it, then she talked to someone, and that person talked to someone, just like the social circle that came out of that. Yeah. And we found this group. But after this group, you know, ended pretty much. We were trying to go out and talk to people and say, hey, you want to come join us, you want to do this with us, that sort of thing. Yeah. Because we are high school students, we will eventually graduate. And so we're hoping to have this project carried on by the next generation of high school students. So we're currently recruiting freshmen and sophomores to hopefully join our team and kind of learn the ways that we do things. Fantastic. Well, and this isn't a typical project, you know, for high school age people to take on. You know, it's normally assignments and things like that, not a full blown magazine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's definitely been a lot of work. There's been a lot of new things that we had to encounter, especially on the business side, like writing grants and applying for non-profit status and things like that, that students our age aren't normally doing. And so it's been a really good learning experience for me and I think for a lot of us, just learning the business side of things. Yeah. Well, let's have a look if we can. We've got some, one of the online editions actually loaded up. So tell us about this issue. Well, this is our first issue and its theme is called New Beginnings, actually because it's our first one, but also because the stories in our magazine often gather around the theme of, you know, starting something new or finding a new way or a new life, that sort of thing. So a lot of the stories come from that, actually. So we have, I think right now we have about 35 stories and that is not just in this issue, but the ones that we've gathered for our next issues as well. And so these stories are actually represented almost all the continents so far. We have stories from China, from Australia, from New York, we have stories from across the globe, and they're all sending us things online and we're talking to people creating these new connections. So we're actually embodying our mission here. Antarctica is the only continent that we don't have a story from yet, but we are working on that one. And some of these images are fantastic. Tell us about those. We actually found a lot of these people, these professional photographers who have gone to these crazy, amazing places and had these amazing experiences and through Flickr, actually, the website that they get to post their images. So we go on, we find people who have an interesting story to tell. And we contact them, we send them an email, this is who we are, this is what we're doing, would you be in any way interested? So that's actually a lot of where our stories come from. From online technology. Now you mentioned before local stories, so is that a case of finding people in the community that have done interesting things or things like that, the usual channels like magazines and stuff like that, or is it more word of mouth? So a lot of the stories that we have from our local community are just through word of mouth. So people that in our group know who have a really interesting story. So for example, there's a student at Davis High School who battled with cancer and we had her mom write a story for us. So we have a lot of stories that were contributed to us just from personal connections we have within the group. We also actually featured an essay written by a student at DaVinci Charter Academy that her teacher actually gave to us and said, hey, you have to check this out, this is a really cool essay. So we looked at it and decided it was perfect for our magazine, so we contacted her. Mostly just through word of mouth since we aren't super well established yet in the community. And in terms of the other stories, do you, the ones that you find from outside the local area, do you tend to find interesting images and try to match them up with a story or the other way around? It actually goes both ways. We tend to find a lot of stories and not really photo stories here in town, here in Davis, because of the people that we know. And oftentimes they don't, they're not necessarily professional photographers, they just have snapshots from their trips or things like that. So after we fill a lot of pages with the stories, we start looking at photo story options. So we feature, I think, two photo stories per issue. And those photo stories come from mostly the outside world, because the professional photographers that have gone to these places and taken these amazing photographs and have a really good story to back it up as well. And those are those kind of things that we fill those pages with. Great. And do you find those photos, you mentioned Flickr before, do you just kind of sit down in front of the TV and start scrolling through? Yeah, there's a lot of just research on the computer, just scrolling through, you know, not only Flickr, but just other professional photographers' websites and kind of seeing people's work and how that may apply to our magazine, the theme of our magazine and whether that would be a good fit for our issue. Because we decide our theme of our issue beforehand and then we try to find stories that will fit with that. Yeah. And I imagine though, you know, you've come across plenty of photos and ideas that have kicked off, oh, we should do this next time. Definitely. We have a few months planned in advance at this point with all of our next issues because we find these amazing stories that have the perfect theme behind them. So we're like, oh, we have to do that next time. We just have to. Well, I suppose that's a fantastic problem to have really. Exactly. We'd rather have that one than others. Yeah. So how does an issue come together? You've found your stories and things like that. So how do you go from a bunch of great stories and interesting ideas to the finished product? So within our team, we have two sides. We have the business side as well as the creative side. And so the business side deals with things like writing grants and talking to the community, getting funds, things like that. And the creative side is all about editing and producing the magazine. So we have a team of a few editors that goes through all the stories and reads them and critiques them and whatnot. And then we have various other creative staff that go through and use different programs to put the magazine together and add all the pictures and make it pretty for people to look at. Yeah, because that's a really professional looking end product. Thank you. Thanks. Now, how many people are part of the team? Like I said before, we have a team of 15 students right now. There's a few trial cases because we're actually, since we started branching out and asking more people, we've had some few interested parties and they have to have a one month trial period to see how they fit within the team, everything. But we have 15 main people and it's actually, we have more business staff than we do creative staff because we need a lot more people to be able to talk to the community because as high school students we're all busy. We've got our extracurriculars and all that. But creative staff consists of the editors and then a few staff members that'll help do the layouts. But we definitely have a lot more business staff. Okay. And so do you have to go around asking permission from a lot of people to use their content and things like that? Oh yeah, definitely. We're learning all the legal loopholes that we can possibly do because sometimes we'll contact contributors and they say, oh, well, this photo was published in this book but you have to talk to my editor to see if you have permission to use it and so we have to go around, we have to go through all the different steps to finally figure out if we can actually publish this. Yeah. Who's got copyright, what license was it published under? Lots of technicalities, yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned writing grants. How necessary is that, is it an expensive process putting the magazine together? Yeah. So there's lots of... Yes. Our main fund that we're trying to get money for right now is printing. So we currently... we didn't have the funds to print our first magazine so that's why it's an online-only issue but we're hoping to print our next issues in the future and so the main funds that we're trying to get right now for that but there's also funds to get non-profit status, funds for programs that we need to make the magazine, funds for our website, upkeep, lots of different things. Yeah. So hopefully in the future if we get enough funds we have the fundraising altogether that we will print 250 full-color copies of our magazine that we will then distribute in both the local community as well as the global community because we have contacts with a lot of global fundraising agencies and different things that we're going to be partnering with and then they have agreed to go bring our magazine over to their home countries and distribute it there and promote it there so hopefully that will bring in more stories from various different social climates and everything so we can get a broader understanding of the entire world. Yeah. So that's where most of our most of our income is going to go because that is an extremely expensive process. Yes. And it's something I wanted to ask about as well because in an age where pretty much every magazine or journal I can think of is going from print to digital why go the other direction? Yeah. That's actually a question that we've asked ourselves a lot and I think the main reason is that we want to be able to reach communities that don't necessarily have internet access. Yep. And so the most sensible way to do this is with the print copy and also I think just for us to be able to see our finished product and be able to hold it in our hands is something that's really valuable. We're also trying to expand our audiences to not necessarily this digital age that we live in but also some of the older generations who might be interested in our stories that they don't necessarily want to sit there and flip through, keep clicking the next page and everything. They like the physical copy. So we're going to be publishing both the online and the print hopefully so then we can reach a broader range of audiences. Great. Yeah. Because there is real value to having the hard copy in your hands to be able to read. It's much more satisfying. Yeah. Exactly. But do you think it's been an advantage in your case starting with the online magazine and building up a following there because then you'll have an audience of people that want the hard copy rather than printing a stack of magazines and having to find people to give them to? Definitely. I think it is an extraordinarily good idea to do that. Not only because it's a lot cheaper to get a following through online versus print but also it's a little bit more easy access especially for this age. Like you said everyone is going to online stuff. Yeah. So they can go through they can flip through and then decide whether or not they want the print copy to keep forever because we've actually after publishing this online issue we've had a few questions asked you know when are you coming out with a print copy I'd love a print copy to keep or businesses contacting us saying hey I would love to put a print copy in my office and you do have those that sort of thing. And also because this was our first issue is really I think it was nice to not have to worry about printing and just focus on and so now that we kind of have that under our belt we can move on to printing. Yeah. Fantastic. Now have you mentioned you've got 15 people working on it has it always been that case or did you start with sort of a handful of people in the beginning? I think we started with like eight or nine and then we slowly grew from there but it grew pretty fast to this 15 that we've had for a little while now because just through like I said people talking to each other just friends or friends that sort of thing. And do you have any particular favorite stories either you know already been published or you know perhaps hints for for upcoming issue? One of my favorite stories is we had a photographer that we actually got to know through Flickr write a story for us and he's a part of a project on Flickr called the Hundred Strangers Project. Okay. And basically this project was just like it sounds he was challenged to once a day go out and take a picture of somebody that he now and challenge himself to talk to them and to get to know them. And so he supplied us with various photos that he took doing this project as well as a story about what this project told him and it's really interesting because he talks about you know going outside of his comfort zone and realizing that he is more in common with people than he had previously thought. Which I suppose is kind of the you know the aim of the digital age as well to connect people. That's actually one of my favorites also some of our photo stories. One of our photo stories actually is the cover photo the person who submitted our cover photo. She went on a trip through southern China and her story talks about how she found what she called a backpacker's paradise or a home away from home so she was able to somewhere completely outside of her comfort zone she was able to find this whole new community that she really connected with and she fell in love with and who welcomed her and she basically found another home there and she created all these connections I never would have talked to if she didn't take this trip and it actually struck home with me because I love traveling too and I want to go to all these places and it was just really hit home for me. Well it sounds like you'll have no shortage of contacts with you. Exactly. So this is a recurring theme throughout the whole you know throughout the whole process isn't it the connectedness that you know like building communities locally and internationally. Yeah. I think that's fantastic. Thank you. Yeah, we're really excited about it. Now the I suppose some of the contributors do you ever have trouble actually getting content from them or usually you know if you find someone with a story to tell they're happy to tell it. We actually haven't had much problem with that. We have only had a few people who said you know I'd rather not contribute. But we've had a lot of people who either just don't respond say yes I'd love to contribute and then we never hear from them again. So with this like everyone's busy we understand that so what we actually have been doing is doing a lot of interviews where if somebody's too busy to write a story they're not comfortable with their writing ability which is oftentimes a lot is the case. We'll actually go to someone's house or they'll come to us or we'll have a phone interview and we'll record the interview and then we'll type it up straight as we hear it. Okay. And so that's actually another option that we've been I suppose you're branching out even further from publishing to you know full-on journalism now. Exactly. It's a whole adventure for us. Yep. So do you think that's going to grow as well? Do you see yourself taking on you know reporters and things like that? I think that the main idea of Spectra is to have the community write stories for us so I'm not sure if the Spectra team will ever be writing stories. I can definitely see us conducting more and more interviews in the future but I think that the main focus of the magazine will really be collecting stories from the community and publishing those. Excellent. Because then it's great to hear you say that because so many projects you know start off with a fantastic idea but then you know sort of follow one good idea or another and kind of lose focus but you guys you know laser focused to what you want to do. Exactly. Ah. Now the so yeah who takes care of the layout? That would be your editor-in-chief Linda. She is the leader of our team pretty much and since she's a senior she is now passing on the knowledge somewhat for our second issue is going to be headed by our next or some of the other editors in doing the layout more. But yeah she is mostly the one who does a lot of layout and helps oversee that using some various design programs that we have. Yeah. Cool. And do you tend to use you know sort of open source stuff or you know the design programs and all of that? So it's a little bit of both right now for this first issue we use the free trial of Adobe InDesign which is a 30-day free trial that you can just download from the internet. I imagine that was a bit frantic. Yeah and so as we mentioned we've been applying for grants and things like that and part of that funding is going to be going to buying the full the full version of Adobe InDesign so we'll be able to use that for our next issues. Excellent. We'll help you know you say you kind of want to set it up as its own entity so that newcomers can can join the team and people that graduate can move on. Exactly. So you know having a having that stable kind of workflow is going to help. Yeah, especially and so right now we're focusing a lot on not only publishing our second issue but the business team is focusing a lot on writing bylaws and writing everything all of our steps down so that when we graduate it'll be able to continue with the same vision and the same goal that we have now. And I suppose you know if everything's documented then people won't have to invent things from scratch. Exactly. Yeah we're really working on setting up a strong scaffolding so that when we graduate freshmen and sophomores will be able to come in and use what we have done to keep this thing running. Yeah. Has it been challenging negotiating the legal and the business side of things? It's been very much a challenge because as high school students we don't necessarily know or understand a lot of legal issues but the community has really stepped up in that regard and we have found a lot of mentors throughout the entire community so we've had we've talked to various attorneys around town some bankers have been really helpful we have had some marketing people from UC Davis talked to us we have had thousands of thousands of emails going back and forth between these people making sure we're not infringing on anything we're not doing anything wrong we're not going to get sued later down the road it's been really really big help. Yeah the community has done this project they've really stepped up and taken an interest in what we're doing and taken initiative to help us so it's been really great. Oh that's excellent and have some of these business and legal skills have they helped when it comes to partnering with other nonprofits and things like that? Not quite yet we hope to use these skills in the future who definitely start partnering with things with different projects I meant to say but we haven't actually done that since we're still getting on our feet and really becoming fiscally sound and all of that so we hope to see that in the future but we have not done that yet One of our long term goals is to make connections with organizations abroad as we mentioned before which would be really cool if we got connections there And once we make the connections there we hope to use some of the extra funding that we get and that after we pay for our expenses to start creating some sustainable projects abroad so people's donations will now instead of going towards expenses will go towards the sustainable projects with our main goals of our project in mind with like empowerment and different things that we're going to hopefully be creating these projects in other countries And do you see the magazine as kind of being a model one of the actual projects to take overseas Do you see the magazine as fitting in there helping people set up their own version and tell stories from their own community? Yeah, so well, our main reason for creating connections globally is that we want to create a better understanding with communities So we're hoping that once we make these connections abroad we'll be able to have people there write stories for us and contribute to our magazine And then also as Shelby talked about we're hoping to create other projects there with funds that we have like with our income based around what we like to call the three E's which is empowerment, education and entrepreneurship So we're hoping to promote those ideas in foreign countries through our magazine Excellent And I suppose that'll need a big network of organisations and education institutions and things like that So those connections will come into play there as well Yeah And how's the school been involved or supported or Yeah We have gotten a lot of support from our schools particularly from DaVinci Charter Academy here in Davis Our principal Mr. Bruncho has been extremely supportive of our project Yeah He's been really interested in our cause There's also a faculty member who is really connected with the community and has been able to put us in contact with various people like Shelby mentioned like business people across town and accountants and lawyers and things like that and that's been super helpful And our principal also gave us in contact with the entire new tech network which is DaVinci is a part of a network of schools across the nation and is now centre around technology and project based learning So that is another resource that we intend to use in the future Because again it's building these connections between schools Yeah And how do you go about fitting in the workload for the magazine in with all your other commitment It's definitely tough It's a challenge You have to prioritise I know for me I basically I start each night with my homework and then when I'm done with that I'll usually give the rest of my time and you know send emails or talk to people or you know help out with the creative side if that needs help things like that And it definitely means giving up a few hours of TV time or Facebook time and things like that But I think that it's a sacrifice that I'm willing definitely willing to make Like Elsa said you start with your homework and then after that it's done because school comes first after that homework is done then you give the rest of the time to Spectra You sit there at the computer for hours sending emails calling people and it's a project that we're all really invested in so although it is hard work we're all really interested in getting it done we're all we all really want to see this project succeed so we're none of us mind yeah we're very driven to do it so Well and I suppose the whenever something is done really well it looks easy and the magazine as you've produced it you know looks fantastic looking at it I would have no idea of what goes on behind but it's it's not just about putting the words into the columns and things like that it's all the work that goes into like you say sending hundreds of emails and all that yeah yeah definitely there's an entire network behind that magazine it's making it work and of course I should mention it's available at Spectra.co.nr isn't it and there's one issue up there at the moment exactly and then we'll actually be producing a smaller easing or like a teaser issue almost on March 1st that will be coming out on our website as well and then our next print issue will be coming out on what was it April 27th that was it April 27th and that will be up on our website as well hopefully get some print issues out too cool so a print issue roughly every kind of six months yeah we'll be producing a print issue three times a year and we'll be doing it on a quarterly basis skipping this summer quarter so we'll be doing it in the fall, the winter and then the spring because you need holidays exactly and then in between like Shelby mentioned teaser issues which are going to be online only and those we've published on our website which will be full of stories that aren't necessarily going to be put into our print magazine exactly because that means they didn't actually fit the theme or they were a little too long things like that but they're still fantastic stories that we really want to share for the community great well it's been so interesting having you guys on the show today thank you so much for having us yeah thanks very much for coming along thank you thanks and of course thanks to everyone at home for watching now if you want more information about Spectra or DCTV you can log on to davismedia.org you can watch the show again and we'll have a link to Spectra up on our website too now while you're at davismedia.org you can check out all the other programs that we have to offer as well that's all we've got time for tonight so thanks very much for watching and we'll see you next time I'm your host Patrick Shearer and I'll see you in the next studio