It’s new…do you like it?

Well, okay, now it’s a week old, the new look here at Blog Segullah. The template we had been using, which I had adapted from Juicy when the blog launched, was looking a bit cluttered and drab from all my add-ons and color changes. And, it became apparent during our recent free issue contest, that some of you didn’t know we do a journal.

I really admire the blogs done by J. Stapley; particularly I can always find what I’m looking for at the three-column blogs By Common Consent and Splendid Sun. However, I decided to try and put together a three column of our own, based on the Deficient Wordpress Theme. Love that name. Deficient has a lot of cool features, like lists that appear only when you click for them. Despite my resolve to use something off the shelf, I ended up making so many alterations for our context that what you’re seeing are Deficient’s well-coded bones.

So let’s start the tour.

The posts, of course, are front and center. That’s what it’s all about, right? I hope the line length is good for you. I had wanted to go to a liquid layout, and I’m still a bit heartbroken that I didn’t.

Above you, a banner illustrated with a slice of the cover art of our current issue. Even if you’ve seen all the pieces we have photographs of in the Consecration issue, you should check out Mandi Mauldin Felici’s website and see more of her work—I feel I’m experiencing the grace and fragility of how we connect and shelter each other when I see her work.

On the left, we have a side column devoted to the journal. Yes, we put out an excellent literary journal three times a year. What I love about doing the journal is the opportunity and occasion it gives writers to take their art to the next level, through preparing a piece for print and working with an editor.

I added some links to the journal’s main site on the left, because I want you to know, frex, that you can subscribe. And by subscribe, I mean we will physically mail a printed-on-paper issue to you, beautifully laid out by designer Michelle Bridges. You’ll be able to hold it in your hands, see all the art, and even take it places that a laptop won’t easily go. Also, among those links to the left, you can click to read all the issues of Segullah online. In fact, I’ve put up an Editorial Spotlight that rotates through some specific suggestions of essays and poetry worth checking out in the archives. And, there are links about how to enter one of our writing contests–perhaps YOU should be printed in Segullah.

On the right, we have a column that’s about blogging, unremittingly. When you comment, we shamelessly leverage your name so your friends and fans will click to read what you said. We have a list of “Footnotes” of the amusing or interesting we’ve found elsewhere on the internet. There are Editors’ Picks of our favorite blog posts. And further down, past the self-explanatory lists, is the LDS Women Blogs Sampler, our own aggregator of LDS Women blogging. Click on the title and it lists twice as many recent posts, with a couple opening sentences from each.

So, what do you think?

If you want to modify Wordpress templates in your spare time or otherwise play with a server, we should talk, because I’ve been mentored by friends and then self-taught into my current level of website semi-competence, and I’d really love to pay it forward. I’m webmaster AT segullah DOT org.

Though maybe, on the other hand, I should just be begging someone to tell me what I can do to decrease the load time of this page.

Thanks for visiting.