Being a prospective English major with an interest in literature, I wish to write my blog on what is happening in the literary world. I have a lot of interesting ideas about where I could take this blog. The first things that come to mind are book reviews. It could also be interesting to cover literary “news” about new books that are coming out or looking at what popular authors are working on etc. I would even think about doing a close reading of a poem or two, as I have thoroughly enjoyed picking apart the poems we have read in my English 220 class and I believe that by sharing the experience of really digging deep into a poem I can give them similar experiences to ones that I have had. Basically, my blog would be similar to Page Turner, the New Yorker’s literature blog in content.
In terms of design and layout, I plan to have my blog take after other successful literary blogs like The Millions and the Paris Review Daily. I find the layouts of both of these blogs to be very appealing, with their high contrast design stemming from bright colors imposed on a white background. I also want my blog posts to be presented ‘loud and proud’ on the front page of my blog, that is, large and colorful pictures heading the beginning of the post, unlike some other literary blogs which just put plain titles and text seemingly scattered all over the page. I would also think about using an unorthodox font for the titles of my posts in order to make them stand out to the reader.
While the idea of a ‘literary review’ blog is certainly not a new one, I think I can add my own spin on the idea and make something that is both interesting and entirely my own.
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/
http://www.themillions.com
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner