Anonymous City Press Release

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Welcome to Anonymous-City

Myanonymouscity.wordpress.com is the forthcoming, first phase of an online magazine aiming to incite the social and cultural instance based tales from new and emerging student writers. The intention is to briefly commandeer an array of reader’s emotions and ideals for an assortment of flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry from Columbia College Chicago’s students, one recent graduate and an adjunct faculty member. A tri-quarterly magazine each year’s three issues will include repeating themes. The premier issue’s theme will be women’s lives/femininity in society and all the relationships, conflicts, triumphs, lessons learned and all that meanders in between. For example, Anonymous City’s first issue includes a young woman’s journey of family love by finding a soul mate in her closest cousin and childhood friend. Separately, a lady entering middle age finally decides to have children but discovers the impossibility within her own uterus and conversely the possibilities of rediscovering her body and femininity without a procreating destiny.

Each issue of Anonymous City will be posted by the 16th of January, May and September months. From each contributor their brief biographies, current projects as well as links to their personal websites will be made available following their contribution posts. Included in the premeir issue will be an interview with Amy Schroeder, Editor and Founder of Venus Zine. It's not your average Q and A but we hope you enjoy. For further information please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Candace Robertson
Address inserted
Crob243@yahoo.com
773-780-8420

The following are a couple of writers Anonymous City thinks that you should look out for:
Jessica Young has a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in Performance Studies, and this spring she's graduating with an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. She's been published in Warpland, Hair Trigger 29 and 30, the 2007 and 2008 Story Week Reader, and she has an essay in the upcoming issue of Ghost Factory. She is a contributor to Chicago Public Radio's Eight Forty Eight. Jessica is currently an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College. She is at work on her first short story collection, and lives in Chicago.

CP Chang received his M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia College of Chicago in 2007. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Hair Trigger, artisan, Upstairs at Duroc, Atlanta Review, on Nerve.com, on wordriot.org, and in the anthology My Angels and Demons at War. He also writes a column for the suburban newspaper The Evanston Sentinel. A section of his novel-in-progress (tentatively titled Causes) won the Patricia Painton Scholarship at the Paris Writers Workshop and an Honorable Mention with the Helen Fong Dare Scholarship at Columbia College.
He can be heard performing his work as a contributor to the reading series RUI: Reading Under the Influence, at the Kate the Great's bookstore, and as part of the 2nd Story performance group. His photography can be seen in No Touching and on Schmap Chicago.

Monica? Are you there?

Yo Monica. I was wondering if you could email me about your roommate and his willingness to eat cake for booking services. If you get this my email is crissieo@gmail.com

Out Of The Gate, The Race Begins

I finally got the finished file from the designer.  Had little things fixed like switching odd page numbers to the right-side page, etc.  Uploaded it to AlphaGraphics and am waiting to hear from them to go over some specifics.  Now it's off to the races to get it proofed and printed by Tuesday.  They still say that Tuesday by 4:00 p.m. should be "nooo problemo."

*5/9 UPDATE:  AlphaGraphics said the proof will be ready Monday afternoon.  After I look at it and give the okay, the rest of the copies will be ready for pick up at 2:00 Tuesday.

Now...about those other classes I'm taking...  

A Taste of Something New

I received my first unsolicited submission! Finally! The week before this thing is due. I'm so excited though. A couple weeks ago, I posted a call for submissions on Columbia's new classified ad section on the InTheLoop thing for students and alumni and I think that is probably where she learned about my magazine. The best part is that the submission is for the Taste section, which was lacking any content. Now I just need to figure out what to say in the acceptance letter - wish I had some acceptance letters of my own to refer to. I want to write her and be like, "OMG! Thank you, thank you, thank you for your awesome poem! Because I was really getting desperate for something to fill the Taste section and this poem is better than I ever expected to find!" But that really wouldn't be very professional would it? I feel a bit embarrassed though, because the submission comes from a stranger, a Columbia alumni, and is a very well written poem, whereas my other submissions were solicited as favors from my amateur friends - some of which haven't written anything since high school. Not to slam them or anything, because their submissions are much appreciated, but it is not the best work I've ever read in my life. Now, with a real writer other than myself, I feel like the stakes have been raised. It no longer feels like just another class project. This person may actually credit my magazine in her cover letter for future submissions. Whoa.

Preparing for Anonymous City's Premier

In the beginning I constructed this elaborate design for this all art all the time website, somehow forgetting that I don’t know very much about web design and I’m not one for asking others for help. So, I’ve definitely decided to work on the blog site with WordPress and the stories that have been submitted. In my Fiction Writing and Publishing course last semester, we were made aware of the fact that most writers don’t send online magazines their best stuff, so I had to be prepared for the worst. Then, I read the stories and I was pleasantly surprised and grateful they even sent me anything at all.

Now it’s time to post everything and I hope that it comes out ok. Knowing that the site won’t be exactly what I want it to be, I have to focus on the stories and their potential. Speaking to that issue, I’ve always considered myself more of a novel person but since Fiction II I can’t put down my Norton’s Anthology, Oxford Book of American Short stories, Sherman Alexie’s “Toughest Indian in the World” and after reading Kelly Link’s “Stranger Things Happen” they’ve changed how I look at short fiction and I believe they have helped my editing of the short stories I’ve received from my contributors. Even thought my contributors’ stories were pretty much finished when I received them, my reading is helping me dig into their meaning or themes as they relate to AC’s first issue’s theme. Hopefully the blog won’t be too bad of a read.

Home Stretch

Found a pro designer that is doing the layout for me.  I see it as paying them to keep my sanity InTact.  Also, I talked to Alpha Graphics today and they say that 6x9, saddle stitch, full-color with nice cover can be turned around in 48-hours.  My artist said all work will be completed by this weekend, so that will give the designer a couple of days to do his magic.  I think all is good in the riding hood.  But next time I will do things different. Like:

• Plan to do the writing myself for the first copy.  Anything submitted by others will be icing on the cake, but not hold me hostage.
• Hire a designer from the get-go.  For the second edition, I will have something in hand that fits my expectations to show a collaborator.
• Artwork is a pain, but it is a necessary one.  After I have a copy in my hands, I don't think finding an artist for a 2nd issue will be as hard.  A real artist sees the first one,  says "That's crap.  I'll do it much better."  Then I dare them to.

Not in Class

Hey Guys I wasn't in class Tuesday so I was wondering if any of you could let me know what is due for next week? Thanks a lot.