YOUR features
Startingfrom Scratch Text // Kilian Webster
Photos // Hope Kauffman
I only met Olivia Moravec about a year ago. She was standing outside of the Gypsy Bar with my friend, Hannah, recounting an illicit tale from her freshman year. She finished the story and then turned to me with a gleam in her eye and said, “You must be Kilian. I love your hair short!” I smiled and accepted the compliment, assuming that she must have mistaken me for someone else. It had been years since I had long hair, and how could someone so utterly fabulous know of me? The spring semester came to a close. Olivia had started up a band with Hannah, and I had become their stage mom when they would perform at 6B Lounge’s open mics. Despite the fact that neither of them had been a part of any sort of band before, Olivia pursued, or perhaps assumed, fame like no other person I had met. I admired her enthusiasm, her vigor, her magnetism; anything and everything she stood for. I barely knew her, but I knew without a doubt that for Olivia it was either go big or go home. Just a few months later, I was sitting in the living room of my summer sublet reading an e-mail from some crazy girl who was starting up a new magazine at Emerson. That crazy girl was, of course, Olivia. I responded, saying that I’d be happy to write for the magazine; that I knew absolutely nothing about journalism but that I knew enough about fashion or movies to write about them. I added that I’m really good at copy editing, and would love to be involved in any way possible. Ten minutes later, I received an e-mail
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saying that I would be the Assistant Editor-in-Chief. I don’t know what it was that made Olivia choose me to be her right-hand, but as I later learned, she just has a knack for these things. I was confused at the time, caught in a whirlwind of planning and delegating, desperately trying to keep up with Olivia’s fast-paced mindset. Now, having been a part of Your Mag from the beginning, I am eternally grateful that Olivia took a chance and forced me out of my comfort zone. The rest of the summer was spent teaching our Creative Director to use InDesign, chasing down Emma Stone after spotting her at a sushi place a half-hour prior, running around Beacon Hill with a model dressed in a $200 dress and tissue paper with Bowie make-up to match. It was exhilarating. It was exhausting. And when Your Mag was officially birthed on September 1st, it felt undeniably rewarding. Eight months later and not much has changed. There is still that pit in my stomach as I wonder if designs will be done on time, there was a grammatical error I missed, or if anyone will read it at all. That pit soon turns to butterflies come midnight as I watch the notifications on the Your Mag Facebook page pile up from likes, shares and comments. That isn’t to say it’s been easy. We all learned the hard way what happens when people miss a deadline, when we’ve gotten paint on a pair of designer pants, when we’ve had to regretfully inform our entire staff that there won’t be a print issue for one, two or three months. I
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