Lit Mag Gives Students a Voice

The Between the Lines Korean-English literary arts magazine, first started by a high school student at the North London Collegiate School (NLCS) in Jeju, Korea, has recently been growing in popularity.

A collection not only of written works but also different types of art and photography, Between the Lines became the first student-run literary and arts magazine in Korea when it began publication in May 2012. High schoolers run everything from the production to the printing, distribution, and public relations.

Issues of Between the Lines are published four times a year, making it a quatra-annual magazine, and always have a hierarchy of student editors-in-chief, editors, and writers to conduct a selective and critical process to winnow out all but the most high quality work to be published.

“We take pride in our magazine,” said Esther Haelan Rah, age 18, in an interview with JSR. “[It is] a collection of the best Korean and English writing most students have ever seen.”

Rah, a student at Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies (HAFS) who is the head editor of the magazine’s short fiction editing crew, says Between the Lines “synthesizes different media… [and] allows students to be creative in their own ways.”

Between the Lines magazines often employ an abstract theme, such as “red” in its first issue or “phobia” in its third issue, allowing for various creative and different approaches to the subject matter and how to portray it. The genres of writing published in this magazine include poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, with each piece of writing accompanied by visual art also submitted by high school artists.

Between the Lines is constantly recruiting crew members and submission pieces for new editions of the magazine. Visit http://www.btlmag.com/ to see electronic versions of the magazine.