“The Prothro Review” premiered its first wave of content Friday. A new life-style webzine, “The Prothro Review” focuses on modern culture and style.
Trey Prothro, a senior editing student, updates “The Prothro Review” at noon every Friday to feature original, contributor-based writing and commentary.
Prothro said he did not want the site to be purely a fashion blog, something he initially leaned toward.
“I wanted it to be more than fashion,” Prothro said. “It’s about writing, it’s about art, literature and all that kind of stuff.”
Trey’s inspiration for “The Prothro Review” came through a summer internship in New York at the art-fashion magazine “TIWIMUTA,” which exclusively uses contributer-generated content — a concept Prothro has used in “The Prothro Review.”
“As a platform, as an editing student, this is my aesthetic if I was to edit a publication,” Prothro said. “But I don’t have any resources. I’m not getting paid any money. The site was free. The only thing that did cost was the URL and my mom paid for that.”
Fashion is still a part of the webzine. Prothro is directing a fashion video editorial for the site that is set to debut in March, Prothro said. It is partly inspired by fashion designers’ transition to using video instead of photographs to show off collections.
“The purpose (of the video editorial) is to take trends from the runway and to translate that into things you can find in mass stores, vintage stores and things you might already have,” Prothro said.
Prothro said he initially assembled his contributors by calling contacts and asking if they knew artists, writers or poets who wanted to contribute to the webzine, Prothro said. The webzine now features about 24 contributors.
“I couldn’t do it without all these people,” Prothro said. “The people’s stories — these are their lives that they have written down and I’m just sort of curating and editing and presenting it to everyone else.”
With the combined difficulty of college and work, it’s hard to find time for outside projects, said David Rosenfeld, an opinions contributor and MU student.
“But somehow (Prothro) has managed to do it,” Rosenfeld said. “If anyone could, it’s certainly him. He’s very persuasive.”
The Prothro Review’s” contributors notice his efforts.
“There’s this ice cream from Whole Foods, basil pineapple, and it’s like refreshing-ness in your mouth – “The Prothro Review” is like basil pineapple ice cream,” poetry contributor Devon Douglass said. “It’s new and it’s refreshing and it’s clean and it’s unexpected, and that’s what I like about it.”
According to Prothro, he’s doing it all for the love of art and editing. He’s just happy there’s a place for writers and students to showcase their work from all over the country.
“I just wanted to keep it simple,” Prothro said. “Right now the goal is to have nice webzine and have quality, interesting content each week that’s original, but most importantly, simple and classy.”
