In reality, this is a mammoth undertaking, but one that we feel is of vital importance to fulfill. For instance, what is a community? Is it a collection of people? Is it a place? Might it be the manifestation of a belief? To be honest, I don’t think it’s so easy to say, and there isn’t an answer in this letter. Instead, there is a promise. A promise that we will honestly try to represent the commu
nity that we perceive ourselves to be a part of -- whatever that means – as best we can. The best way we can do this is to reflect the world around us through the lens of our own eyes and ears and tongues and noses and hands and minds; to be our own construction of community; a community of ideas. What music are we playing? How are we creating new art? What drives our poetry? What does our literature say about us? Which events shape our lives? Who defines us? Here is where we might explore the world through the arts. So, this is also a forum for aspiring artists and writers to join the fray. Everyone deserves a chance to be heard. I want to publish an alternative magazine (readNotes). My vision for it is to be an open forum to discuss topics that we, as a community (of everywhere and nowhere), are passionate about. Ideally these will include creative journalistic articles, journal-like entries, short essays on topics that interest you and submissions of your artistic expression (visual art, poems, creative writing and any other thing you can think of; if we can find a way to get it into the magazine, we will). To give you an idea, we're thinking of topics like art, environmentalism, social justice, community building or something like "being a working mother," "why i don't support tar sands," or "my favourite recipe and how i discovered it. I think you'll see the idea as we go along. At first this is going to a slow process, so be topical, but if something has a "must be printed by" thing, it might not make it to print on time (for now). The end goal is a print magazine, but it’s hard to do, so I would like to try and collect your work, and present it to the world on a web basis until we get together the means for print. Submit your articles in (.doc) format to [email protected]. I will edit for grammar etc., keep in mind that all the rules apply of the site we are posting on. For now, please message me your story idea (or let me know if you want to submit your creative act). We can hash out details accordingly. This is an underground thing for now, but we shall see! Please keep in mind, the intent of this publication is to foster a community through freedom of expression, and I expect to recieve a myriad of styles and view points. HOWEVER, this is not intended to be a negative platform and hate speech or acts WILL NOT be tolerated. On a lesser level of concern, being critical is fine, but just dumping on something is not necessary. really hate an album? then don't review it, unless you can spin it into a relevant topic. OR pick an album that has moved you in some way, whether that is positive or negative or you just watched "Eraserhead" and you can no longer tell up from down. We know, as we embark on this journey, that it will not be an easy one, but it is not only one that we must take or want to take, but it is one that is the source of our passion. It is the one that draws us together. We think it will be worth your while.
