Q&A: Writing Student Selena Aiyla Steps into the 'Office' as Managing Editor

Second-year Writing student Selena Aiyla has just been named the Managing Editor at Office Magazine, a role second to the Editor-In-Chief and Founder of the magazine. The popular New York arts and culture magazine, founded in 2014 as a print magazine, is now a global media network designed to subvert convention in fashion and cultural media at large. I asked Aiyla a few questions about taking on this exciting role while completing her MFA in Fiction. Here's our conversation:

How did this exciting opportunity come about?

SA: I’ve been doing journalism since I was a kid, creating handwritten "newspapers" that I distributed to friends, family, and neighbors, containing only the juiciest town gossip (a kid having their first kiss or a new episode of Hannah Montana airing). That spiraled into creating a newspaper at my high school, then student journalism in college and post-grad magazine journalism while living in LA. I’ve worked at a few different culture magazines, but I align with Office most by far. I started as a writer; but I was pitching too much during my part-time days. So being an editor made more sense to my EIC.

How has the MFA prepared you for this kind of editorial work?

SA: By training me to "kill my darlings," I think the writing MFA teaches you that it's okay to be a little vicious in the editing process. Sometimes you have to make cuts to a section that you love for its prose, but doesn't propel the overall narrative forward. The same thing goes for a think piece or feature. You have to be super intentional, a master gold miner.

How has your journalistic and editorial work informed your writing practice?

SA: Journalism has trained me to be a really inquisitive and empathetic person. I do a lot of interviews with creatives: fashion designers, musicians, writers, etc. And being able to pick someone's brain really helps me step into their shoes and understand who they are as a person, which improves my understanding of why they create the way they do. Being an interviewer is like doing a million little case studies on some of the coolest brains in culture right now. Seeing through someone else's lens for the duration of the time I’m working on a profile exercises the same muscle I use when I write through the voice of fictional characters in my novel.

What does it mean to you to be named Managing Editor of the magazine at this moment in the industry?

SA: It makes me think heavily about the state of the journalism world. I want to help curate content that challenges the current cultural climate (rather than regurgitate what we're already seeing), pushes our talent to new places, and pushes writers to think more deeply about what we're working on and why. It's a bit of an overwhelming goal, but I’m taking slow steps in that direction.

What are you currently working on with Office? Or, do you have any favorite stories you've worked on?

SA: Print revival! Print media is so back. And it's so needed. We're living in such a digital age. My eyes are glued to my devices 24/7, and my brain is becoming unbearably forgetful due to all the short-form content and doom-swiping. I remember as a kid, I got so much creative inspiration from flipping through Y2K magazines and reading about my favorite pop stars and looking at editorial photography. We need more of that these days. So, we just released our Spring/Summer issue (the print revival issue). The theme was love, and it's in Casa Magazines and Iconic Magazines at the moment! I interviewed Brutalismus 3000, and we talked about how brutality and love sometimes go hand in hand. It was a great conversation. We're currently working on the Fall/Winter issue, and we’ve chosen a really cool theme. You'll have to check it out later this year.

Selena Aiyla is a NYC-based journalist, poet, and fiction writer whose work has consistently appeared in Flaunt Magazine, Metal Magazine, and Office Magazine, where she is now the Managing Editor. Her work most commonly explores intersectional feminism and the femme experience at large, with city culture as a backdrop for this analysis. LA is her first love. NYC is her mistress.