UPDATE: The Asheville Current was a beautiful flash in the pan created by ambitious and excited UNC Asheville students. We printed 2 full issues (view them on Issu here: https://issuu.com/theashevillecurrent) and published some content digitally. Unfortunately, our website has been lost. Maybe next time! If you live in Asheville, you may have noticed that it feels like every server, barista and gr
ocer in this city moonlights as an artist or writer of some kind. This town hides a wealth of untapped talent, and a reservoir of amazing untold stories. The Asheville Current aims to package the extraordinary drama and struggle of everyday life in Asheville utilizing Asheville's best kept cultural secret - the talents and imaginations of people waiting your tables and cleaning your houses. In the new American economy, students and recent graduates work for free. We take unpaid, revolving-door internships in order to build a résumé worth the time of those who would offer us paid work. The Asheville Current is a magazine, but it's also a message to those who would have us run their coffee and organize their files. The message is simple: if we are to work for free, we're going to work for ourselves and the community. Our Plan
Of course, in true start-up fashion, we can't do it alone. We're selling ads as fast as we can, but it's hard. The funds to print the first issue will come almost entirely from what little advertising space we've managed to sell. If we want to make The Asheville Current a thing then we're going to need a little help from the community. Printing is only the start of costs when it comes to publishing a magazine. Many venues won't let you place your publication in their establishment unless you supply your own rack. Those are about $30 a piece, if you can believe it. Provided we make all the money we need to print and outfit our paper, something magical happens. Once we're in the black, we can start buying stories from writers in the community. We can pay photographers, designers, and editors. We won't pay them much, of course, as we won't have much. But, if we can pay them, then they might never have to work for free again. Risks and challenges
Journalism is rife with possible setbacks. Sources could drop out, advertisers can fall through, photo consent can be revoked - if you can think of it, it could possibly happen. Luckily, in a magazine everything is open to change. Stories can be replaced, new advertisers funneled in, and photo illustations can take the place of honest-to-goodness photojournalism. As long as we keep the presses going, we'll be good to go.
