During the 2016-17 school year, PA Distance Learning Charter School launched our first literary magazine club, Bridging the Distance with Ms. Hannah Lewis at the helm.

We are excited to announce that our 2017-18 Literary Magazine: The Reach of Creativity has been selected to receive a rank of Merit in the 2018 NCTE Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines (REALM) Program. The mission of NCTE’s REALM Program is to publicly recognize excellent literary magazines produced by students with the support of their teachers. REALM is designed to encourage all schools to develop literary magazines that celebrate the art and craft of writing.

The PA Distance Learning Literary Magazine Club was founded for several reasons: to teach students (club members are students in grades 7-12) about the editorial process and the evaluation process for creative works; to celebrate the creative gifts of PA Distance students; and to use students' creativity to connect peers across distances in our online environment.

Our literary magazine is a collection of creative compositions submitted by PA Distance Learning students, which include creative writing and visual compositions and this year with the help of Ms. LeNora Emanuelson's Electronic Music students, will include audio compositions (musical sound stories) as well.

The magazine's title, "Bridging the Distance," is no accident. The club's guiding philosophy is that, while separated by physical space across the state of Pennsylvania, our students are connected by their shared values, creative endeavors, and investment in community-building. The literary magazine is just one place where our students build connections across space, and it does so supremely well thanks to the community-building power of reading, writing, and creative compositions of all kinds.

Congratulations goes out to Ms. Lewis and the amazing PA Distance Learning students who helped make such an accomplishment possible!  Be on the lookout this spring for the 2018-19 literary magazine with Miss Maggie Dietrich taking a leadership role with the club moving forward.