We have kept Blackbird structurally simple in order to emphasize the quality of its content and to make reading, viewing, and listening to it as effortless—technologically speaking—as possible.
Menu Structure
All pages in Blackbird have six buttons across the top. Three lead to the current issue’s basic genres—Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction. One leads to Gallery, whose innovative contents cross genres and vary from issue to issue. Another leads to the current issue’s Features, primarily audio and video content. And the last leads to Browse, a page that offers a suggested order to move through the current issue’s content.
All pages in Blackbird also have a menu on the left-hand side. This menu varies from page to page. On some pages, such as this one, its links lead to areas that are primarily informative—Editorial Policy, Submissions, Links, and so forth. On all pages within the genres and Gallery—contributors’ notes, poems, stories, and the like—it provides an alphabetical index of all contributors within that content area so that you can quickly and easily move among pieces within a genre.
Printing
On all content pages we provide a version optimized for printing. Select the “print preview” icon in the upper right-hand corner of the piece, and then print using your browser’s print functions.
Links that Open in Separate Browser Windows
Some links in Blackbird—to sites outside of Blackbird, for example—are configured to open in separate browser windows.
Please contact Blackbird at blackbird@vcu.edu with any problems you may encounter. 