Flower girl

Ashley Hennefer is the founder and editor of Wildflower Magazine, a female-positive publication you can find online each month and in print four times a year. Learn more at wildflowermagazine.com.

What can people expect to find in Wildflower Magazine?

It’s a creative magazine for women. It started as a one-time anthology that featured photography, poetry and prose by local female artists but has since opened up to an international readership. The focus is on art, but … [also] science. The purpose of the magazine is to provide a place where women can be talked about in an innovative, respectful way. The most recent issue showed women in science, and hopefully each issue will feature women in a different field. … We want to feature women in all walks of life. We also have male contributors who contribute features about women and the women in their lives.

How did it begin?

I started it in June 2009 as an independent project. At the time, I was editor at [the University of Nevada, Reno literary publication] Brushfire, and I love editing and publishing and designing a magazine. So I originally planned to do a one-time anthology with my friends, because there’s such a huge arts community in Reno. I graduated last year and am in grad school now. … I love independent publishing and think there’s a lot of great tools out there for people who want to start a magazine, so I decided to just go for it. It’s still a big business endeavor and there’s a lot of planning. There’s a lot of great printers available, and social networking can help get projects off the ground.

I noticed you have a Facebook site. Where else can people find you?

There’s a website, wildflowermagazine.com. We have a Twitter at Wildflower Mag. And there’s contact information on the website to submit and contribute.

What are you studying now?

I’m in the literacy program in education, and I’d like to be a librarian or work in publishing.

Why did you decide to start the magazine?

I’d been getting interested in book design and looking to get into some independent projects. I knew so many great artists through Brushfire, and the first anthology got such a great response that I was asked to do it more regularly. Now I’ve gotten submissions throughout the world to share their work.

Can you describe the sections and tone a little more?

The website has regular content that spans all subjects—there’s a science and technology writer, a videogame writer, a film columnist, a woman who does book reviews, and a couple of lifestyle columnists. The website is constantly updated, so people have new things to read about. If you go to the main page it shows all the things women are involved in in their lives, not just fashion and health. The magazine is structured differently than the website, but we try to do a similar thread. The last issue was focused on science and women who traveled around the world, that was a theme that went through the whole issue.

What are your plans for the magazine?

I plan to keep doing it as long as people want to contribute. Each month that goes by I get more and more contributors. I plan to do it as long as I have people interested. I’d like to do a monthly print issue, as well as the monthly e-issue. … As of now, the print issue is only available online through the website [$6] and you can get it on Amazon.com [$10].

Anything else we should know?

I think that covers everything. While the audience is for women, all people can contribute. It’s not limited to female contributors; I just wanted it to be a female-positive magazine.