About the Student Editor



Cathy Sadowski
student editor & web designer

a favorite haiku by Cathy:

in the garden
we kiss
a rose bud opens

About the Student Edtior, Cathy Sadowski

I am a Writing Major attending Millikin University and I love to write. I have loved writing since I was in Kindergarten and I haven't stopped yet! My favorite genres to read and write are science fiction, fantasy, short stories, poetry, and haiku. I studied haiku more in depth during the Global Haiku Traditions class taught by my college advisor, Dr. Randy Brooks, who helped me develop my own haiku. Although I haven't had any of my haiku published, I still enjoy writing them.

I started this project in January 2001 as part of an Internship Program at Millikin University. Dr. Brooks offered me an internship at his publishing firm, Brooks Books, and just after I had returned from Christmas break, he gave me a blue box covered with stamps of birds and colorful stickers. With a twinkle in his eyes, Dr. Brooks said, "I have the perfect project for you!" Inside were the beautiful pictures taken by photographer, Gretchen Batz, as well as a project she and haiku writer, Lee Gurga, had created for the Global Haiku Festival in spring 2000. Dr. Brooks asked me to help him create a web site for this project, and I happily accepted.

After screening out some pieces, I decided to organize the pictures and haiku according to the seasons. That way, when people read them, there would be a continuous flow from one to another. I started with winter because a majority of the photos were from winter, and I felt that ending with photos that looked continuously similar would be a turn off to readers. Also, I felt none of those photos were appropriate to end this compilation. After winter came spring, summer, then fall, which had almost as many pictures as the winter ones. I tried to put them in chronological order, to show the "long walk" we all take through the seasons. I believe this would help readers not only experience a journey through the haiku but also catch a glimpse of life they may not have experienced before. The goal of this project was to link the haiku and photography together forming a symbiosis between visual art and the written word, and I feel that my decisions helped make this possible.

I would like to thank Dr. Brooks for asking me to take on such an enjoyable project which helped me learn about the nuances of web design, and also Millikin University for letting me work with some of the most creative people I have ever known.

Cathy Sadowski
Millikin University

Spring 2001

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