Entreprenurial Alumni: Adriana Ciontea & Kevin Woodley present Seaborne Magazine
Adriana and Kevin at their graduation.
In this interview we catch up with amazing alumni Adriana Ciontea and Kevin Woodley to learn more about what they’ve been up to in their time after Falmouth and to hear all about their new magazine, Seaborne.
Tell us what have you been up to since graduating from Falmouth?
Adriana – after graduation, I decided to go into further education. I did an MA in Publishing Media at Oxford Brookes University. For me, it was the best decision moving forward. I learned so much about publishing, but my favourite parts were the Design and Digital Publishing modules. I helped build an app as part of a competition involving the education publisher Pearson and my team won. Now there’s talk of taking that forward and turning it into a real product, but it’s still early days.
Kevin – I’ve been working as a freelance entertainment journalist, writing about films and television. When I left Falmouth, I started building my portfolio, and I took this to a small publication (Flip Screen). They liked me and I’ve been writing for them ever since. I’ve joined another bigger publication based in America recently, so things are steadily growing on that front. I’m still writing stories on the side; publishing fiction is still – and will always be – my long-term goal.
How did you become involved with Seaborne Magazine?
Adriana – Even though I enjoyed living and studying in Oxford, I missed the sea and the strong arts community I was part of in Cornwall. I've had the name 'Seaborne' in my head for a long time – it comes from Seaborne by Neville Drury, a book I found in a local charity shop in Falmouth, which had these lengthy, beautiful descriptive passages about seabirds and the coast. Unfortunately, it is out of print now, but I managed to track Neville down two years ago and interview him. Anyway, I remember reading that in my first year at Falmouth. It highlighted what was important to me – the beauty of nature. So, coming back from Oxford, with all the publishing knowledge I had gained, I decided to start something that would take me back to one of the happiest years of my life and celebrate the sea.
Kevin – Adriana and I have talked about starting a publishing project together for a while, since we met, really, but things get in the way and it wasn’t until a few of weeks ago that we decided to take the plunge. Publishing is a competitive field, and most of the job market is based in and around London, but between us, we have three degrees in relevant fields, plus Adriana is a wizard with design, so we thought why not put them to good use? I also have marketing and web design experience, and can never get off twitter, so I figured I’d finally make use of that too. It fell into place frighteningly quick.
What is exciting about this magazine?
Adriana – We aim to be more than just an online magazine. We want to collect and publish the most evocative and atmospheric writing and artwork which capture the sea and its complicated beauty. We do that for people like us – sea lovers – but also for the sea itself. We will be donating some of our profits from sales to charities around the UK who help protect the sea and the marine and coastal wildlife. I think our magazine will be something to hold up and say: ‘This is what you’re paying for – to give future generations a chance to be inspired by this beautiful thing we simply call ‘the sea’.’
Kevin – The reception so far, especially considering how new we are, has been incredibly positive. We knew we had created something that people might be excited about, but we underestimated how much. It’s lovely to hear readers and writers say that Seaborne Magazine is exactly what they've been waiting for because it's the same for us too. We reached about 500 followers within 10 days, which is crazy considering how diluted Twitter is – and then the submissions came on day two, and we were swamped in the best way. It happened during a storm too, it was a fun day. While we love art, Seaborne is also about celebrating what we have now, the sea and the marine life that live there. If pollution and global warming continue, they won't survive. Everybody must do whatever they can, and this our small contribution to that. We love art, we love the sea, combining the two seemed like a natural thing to do.
What kind of work would you like to see come through from our Falmouth community?
Adriana – The Falmouth community is so lucky to be surrounded by such rich history and artistic background. I’m sure students who come to study here are familiar with the works of Woolf and du Maurier, or the many legends across the coast. They are atmospheric, evocative, and they celebrate the sea. That’s what I want would like to see in our inbox. Our submissions are open until January, which is quite a long call-out, but we wanted to give people a chance to discover us.
Kevin – Quirky, confident and moody flourishes of the pen. Adriana is right, Falmouth students have access to these wonderful coastal areas, and that can be so powerful for creativity, and relaxing in general. I echo her in that we want rich, atmospheric works, loaded with mystery and texture. The sea is as scary, unknown and illuminating as the universe, and we want to capture that – the endless lure, what draws people to the sea, what do they find there, what does it reflect. To Adriana, I said I was looking for a sort of bright darkness, which is the phrase I used to describe Ray Bradbury’s The Fog Horn, which bottles everything I want in a story – and one about the sea. We also really encourage the illustration students to submit to us. We’ve worked with them before and know what amazing things they can create.
What do you think will be the most interesting or challenging parts of editing a digital magazine?
Adriana – I think the fact that we deal with something different every day is the most interesting. We've received submissions from every part of the world, and that is exactly what we wanted. Everyone's experience of the sea is different, every submission that comes in has something new and surprising and that is exciting.
One of the most challenging parts, I think, will be getting people to trust us. We know they like the project – we’ve been told so many times on social media and in emails – but there are still some people who look at how young we are and how limited our experience is and think we’re not serious. I think getting them on board will be the biggest challenge.
Something else I've been struggling with is not being able to pay contributors. We've already accepted some exceptional work, and I am so grateful that artists are sending things in for free. But I want to be able to reward them somehow, so for me that is our next priority. We have a donations page for this exact purpose, so if you fancy buying us a virtual coffee, you could help make that possible.
Kevin – The variety of submissions and artists we’ve attracted is exciting and bodes well for the future. Inclusivity is important to us because people from different cultures can bring all sorts of unique perspectives about the sea, as well as art in general.
Being able to put our hearts and names to something is quite special, and when the first issue launches, we can sit back and look at it, and say, that’s us, we made this. That’s what excites me the most. It’s a long game, though, managing expectations and pacing ourselves is going to be difficult.
Yes, one of the hardest things is convincing people to trust our project and the work we want to celebrate, and not having the budget to pay writers at the moment is frustrating. As somebody that’s been on the other side, I know this is extremely disheartening as creative.
It’s early days, but when traffic is slow, it dawns on you how much it takes to run every aspect of a business – more so as it’s only the two of us – and that’s what this has become. It’s demanding, but always exciting.
How did Falmouth University and our community help you prepare for this experience?
Adriana – I always say this: Falmouth has given me so much! I think the most important tools are confidence and a great network of passionate people. I had many opportunities to get out there and experience things for myself and learn, and I tried to take as many of them as I could. That is invaluable to me. Also, Kevin and I met at Falmouth, and as it happens, we got engaged this summer, so really, they have given me much more than I could have hoped for.
Kevin – I met Adriana at Falmouth, so it'll always be a special place for me. My writing improved, and with that comes confidence in what you write. I learned about what I didn't like to write and read about too, which is just as useful! The Falmouth environment has stuck in my head, I loved the combination of art and the coast. That's what I wanted from the university. It also made me aware of the importance of making connections, being seen and heard in a very noisy digital age. Mostly, though, my time at Falmouth has helped me learn to trust my voice and instincts – I think that's so important for any creative, no matter how successful or unsuccessful you feel at the time.
What would be your advice to our current student about life after university?
Adriana – Be brave. There are so many things that could stand in your way in life, but the only one you should watch out for is fear. You can ignore negative people, you can teach yourself any skill, but sometimes it’s hard to tell that part of yourself who doubts every decision you make to mind its own business – you got this.
Kevin – Don't wait until you leave to start a magazine. Stay in touch with good people after you graduate. Don't be disheartened if you don't land your dream job, because it likely won't happen like that. The most important thing is to keep doing what you love doing. As long as you have this, you have a direction, and it'll zigzag all over the place, but that's just part of learning and developing as a human being – which, as some may have realised now, is ten times harder when your passion is art because bizarrely most of the world still doesn’t recognise how important art is, despite heavily consuming it during the pandemic.
What other projects are in the works?
Adriana – Alongside co-managing Seaborne, I'm also working on my novel (sea-inspired, of course). It's been the biggest project for many years, but it's so difficult to tell when it will be done – I'm a perfectionist. I think maybe never, but at some point, I’m going to have to let go of it, hopefully into the hands of a reader. I’m also finally polishing up some of my own poems, and hopefully I will start submitting them to magazines this winter.
Kevin – I’m writing a children’s book. Aside from that, as I said, my writing has fallen into the film industry. I’ve just been granted press accreditation for this year’s BFI London Film Festival, which is a little mad and ridiculously exciting. It’s digital, because of the pandemic, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise. It’s also my first time covering any festival, so it’ll be a big challenge and a special experience. It’s nice to know that, at least, this year, in some sense, I’ll be on the same playing field as all the other critics.
What do you miss from Falmouth?
Adriana – Everything. I’m working on moving back, just waiting for the right opportunities to come up.
Kevin – I miss Penryn campus, I loved it there. Spending my nights exceeding the loan count from the library, that was fun, I liked that.
About Seaborne
You can find out more about Adriana’s and Kevin’s exciting new magazine Seaborne here. You can also follow them on Twitter @SeaborneMag and on instagram @SeaborneMag.
You can keep up with Adriana here and with Kevin here.
by FalWriting