Music Inspires Young Blogger

Most people cannot put music-journalism on their college application. Senior Liv Slaby, however, is one of the few who can.

Slaby, whose passion for music-journalism consumes much of her time, has been writing since she can remember. “I feel like writing just comes the most naturally to me. It’s the most natural way I’ve found to express myself and its just really fun. It’s what I do when I’m happy, when I’m sad, it’s just a wonderful activity,” explained Slaby.

Although many writers tend to confine themselves to a specific type of writing, Slaby expresses herself through many different forms.

She writes many different short stories of varying genres and themes. While Slaby’s knack for short stories may not be unique, her body of work is because of the large collection of music-reporting and playwriting she has accomplished. “I’m applying to a lot of schools as a theater major,” Slaby explained. “Because I really do love the playwriting style where its just basically the dialogue and whatever actions they write in. Those do all the speaking.”

Slaby draws much of her inspiration as a writer from John Cameron Mitchell, a playwright most known for writing and directing Hedwig and the Angry Inch. “The words are just fantastic,” she said. However, outside of other’s literary work, Slaby looks often to her surroundings when searching for a subject to write on. She draws heavily from her own experience in order to create a new piece of writing.”If there is something in my life that is about honesty or friendship, then I’ll probably write something about honesty or friendship,” Slaby said.

Slaby began to recognize her journalistic passion halfway through her high school career when she lived in Chicago. “In my sophomore year,” she said. “I took honors journalism at my old school and that just opened up a whole new world of writing that I found out that I loved.” Having been introduced to journalistic writing, Slaby expanded on the form by combining her love of writing with her love of music. With two people she met online, Slaby began a blog named TheBandBloggers.org, where they write about music. “Us three started this music blog for alternative music and we do interviews and reviews of albums and we go to these concerts and we blog those and review them,” Slaby explained.

Not only has this experience brought Slaby to a new world of writing, it has introduced her to many artists. Her favorite was Josh Manuel from Issues, with whom she exchanged emails.

Throughout the few years the blog has been up, it has made a lot of progress. “The more music we listened to and thought critically about the more we were able to talk about it,”said Slaby. Along with their progression as writers the blog itself has become much more popular. “At the beginning we didn’t really have that much set up, but as time went on we set up a Facebook, a Twitter, and Instagram. You know, an accessible submissions box,” said Slaby.

Katherine Nunn, a friend of Slaby’s and a fellow writer, has seen firsthand Slaby’s experience as a music journalist. Nunn has tagged along to concerts with Slaby, but notes that Slaby’s journalism is not something she has to do.”She does it a lot for herself and for her own pleasure,” said Nunn. “I think she’s very musically driven and she learns by listening and that’s why she does it.”

Along with being a feather in her cap, TheBandBloggers.com has also helped Slaby with her skills as a writer. “As we have more experiences we learn more about the world and how it works so its easier to tell more realistic stories and more interesting stories,” she said.