The Wessex Scene has been given the Student Publication Association’s (SPA) ‘Publication of the Month’ award for November. Announcing the decision on Twitter, the SPA described the Wessex Scene’s collaboration with the Ashamed magazine as an “excellent feat of fundraising and creativity”.
The SPA, which is the organisation tasked with supporting student publications across the UK and Ireland, gives the award every month, which it publishes in its monthly newsletter.
The magazine for which the Wessex Scene won the award was made in partnership with Ashamed, a magazine founded in 2019. For BIPOC only (which stands for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour), Ashamed describes its mission as being to provide “a place where BIPOC can speak freely about fashion, films, music, politics”, and to enable its members to “write freely without the restrictions of whiteness, in a space we don’t have to struggle to break into”.
Not itself a member of the SPA (although a number of its members are also members of the Wessex Scene, which is a member of the Association), Ashamed contributed 8 out of the 14 total contributors to the magazine. Both organisations contributed to the editorial and design processes.
Last year the Wessex Scene was shortlisted for 3 of the SPA’s yearly awards, which saw then-editor Charlotte Colombo, present editor Linnea Lagerstedt, and its magazine design all make it to the final cut of those nominated.
