By Sharma Krauskopf

I have been asked many times recently because of Radiance's birthday, "Why did you start Scottish Radiance?" The more people asked me the more I thought about it. The easy answer is I had been writing for Highlander Web Magazine and really loved doing it. The relationship with Highlander ended and I found myself missing writing my "Highland Miniatures" column. I had had contact with Scott Hatton, the web master for hebrides.com, ever since I allowed him to put my story "Stevenson's Conclusion" on his web site. One day I emailed Scott and said, "How would you like to start a literary magazine based in the Hebrides?" His speedy answer was "You know I had just been thinking about that. Lets do it." So now that had been settled what should we do next. The first task was to get a name for this new endeavor. After many suggestions we decided we like "Scottish Radiance - A Hebridean Journal" best. The name comes from the magical light of the Hebridean islands, which brings photographers from all over the world to capture the sunset or sunrise. Now we had a name we needed a design. Scott was completely overloaded so I was elected to do the web page design. What a terrifying thought that was! I knew nothing about designing web pages except how to put text in html. My first few attempts were pitiful. The only thing I had going for me were some beautiful photos that Scott sent me. While I was messing and I mean messing around with some page designs I realized we also had to have writers. I began searching every where I could think of for quality writers. Gary Dobson and I had become friends at Highlander so he said he would be glad to help. And help he did. For the first few months every Radiance page design was sent to Gary for review. I was totally insecure in the design process. Slowly by word of mouth we were able to get enough stories to put up the first issue a year ago June. I cringe when I look back on the poorly constructed web pages. I loved the purple and red but the logo was really bad. If you do not remember I have include it for you to see. The one good thing about the first logo it led to the current one, which everyone seems to like. The web is a friendly place and lots of people had suggestions. I listened and learned. In fact I learn something new in design every day thanks to emails or other web pages.

It amazes me my husband is still here as I spent all my time at the computer. A web page would take me up to two days depending on what I was trying to do. It gradually got easier and now it is just like writing a story. Easy to tackle and usually quick to complete. Even now I can't get exactly what I want and it takes a little longer. Would you believe sometimes a half hour to decide the colours of the links?

Once we were out there in all of our glory(?), we began to hear from readers. Everyone had suggestions to make the site better and we listened. Most of the time we put the reader's suggestions into operation right away. One suggestion, which caused me many sleepless nights, was to put music on the site in Real Audio. I am a fairly intelligent human being but I worked night and day for two weeks until I learned how to program music. I will never forget sitting at my computer very early on a Sunday morning and clicking for the millionth time on a button to hear my Real Audio song fail again. But instead out came Blair Douglas's "Skye at Last." As tears streamed down my face I thought "Not Skye at last but music at last." I was literally jumping up and down. I must have played that song twenty times that morning just to make sure it was still working.

The problems for me have changed since those early days. First, even though I am faster at designing web pages and doing the html for the columns it takes me a good solid week working 8 hours a day to put an issue together. Radiance has so much good content and each page has to be tended to. My husband laughingly tells everyone he does not speak to me until the magazine is online and then I am human again. It is a big job but worth it.

As you all know the Radiance writers are not paid for their stories. They volunteer their efforts and we all appreciate it. Life being as complicated as it is, I think they are amazing since most of their stories get in on time. The quality is always good as you all know. One sad fact about working with people who are volunteering is other things may take precedent. We lost one writer and will probably loose more as time goes on. Earning a living has to come first and so they leave. So far the only writer from the original group to leave is Bill Currie. And no, he didn't leave us to go fishing full time. He is finishing his latest book. I cried when Bill left and will probably cry when anyone else leaves. New members to the family are added almost every month. It makes the magazine better and better. People are interested in what we are trying to do and want to help

Radiance keeps growing and changing except for one central thing. Radiance has a mission. The mission is to bring the Hebrides specifically and Scotland in general to the world. People who never will get to Scotland get an opportunity to hear the music and the language. They can read the history. They can laugh and cry with people across the big pond. Over 200,000 people a month take a few minutes to visit Scotland via cyber space. Those few minutes are what it is all about. We sell books but only to support the site. We get awards for which we are thankful but what really matters is for a few minutes in their hectic lives the readers of Scottish Radiance can escape to the peace and beauty of our bonnie land.

Someone once said to me "You do Scottish Radiance because of your love of Scotland." I once thought that was my reason but realized it is not the main reason. I spend my time on Radiance because of the READER'S love of Scotland and desire to see great stories.

You can find more articles in the archive under Island Miniatures.

My books can be found at sharmakrauskopf.com.

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