Longtime Dopers will remember, I trust fondly, teemings, the zine adjunct to the SDMB created and run by former mod Eutychus. (You can see archived issues here.) He finally had to give it up, due to having, yanno, a life.
Luckily, I have no such obstacles, so, egged on by my co-conspirator Gfactor, I’ve gotten it into my head to resurrect teemings.
What it will be: a zine where you can submit all the kinds of material that don’t really fit in here at the SDMB. That “not fitting in” might be about content (poetry, fiction, and suchlike) or format (photography and other artwork). I’d love to do two issues a month, but that’s probably overambitious, so let’s say once a month to start.
Where you come in:
First off, we need someone who can set up the web page, which will involve both text and art. I’d like to be able to index everything three ways, by issue, by genre, and by contributor, so the reader can see the December issue, or everything by Poster X, or all the poetry, for instance. Beyond that, and making it look pretty, I don’t have specific expectations. If this is something you know how to do, and you’ve got time to donate to the cause, let me know. (Note: Euty has offered to host the site once we’ve got it set up, so that’s one item knocked off the to-do list already.)
The main thing we need, though, is material to run on the web page once we’ve got one. The categories will include:
[ul]
[li]Fiction (up to 1,000 words; if it’s longer, check with me)[/li][li]Poetry[/li][li]Personal essays and memoirs (500-800 words)[/li][li]Humor and satire (up to 800 words)[/li][li]Reviews (books, movies, music, etc.) (350-500 words)[/li][li]Recipes and other crafty/creative how-to[/li][li]Photography and other artwork[/li][li]Graphic story-telling, cartoons, comics[/li][li]Other? (suggestions welcome!)[/ul][/li]I’m planning to use art to illustrate even the text-based stuff, so if you have photos or other art to illustrate a submission, send it along. (If you don’t, I’ll find appropriate copyright-free/Creative Commons photos to use, as appropriate.) Recipes could have photos of the finished product or illustrations demonstrating particular steps or techniques. The text/art combo could also work in the other direction: photos or artwork might benefit from detailed captions or some sort of creative writing, or you could show off and describe a finished creative project (garden, sweater, wooden toys, etc.).
How it will work: This is going to be an edited zine, not an unedited message board, so all the material will be submitted to an editor –- me -– who will accept or reject individual submissions, ask for rewrites as necessary, and copyedit the material before it’s posted. Please note that I am an editor by profession and have real-life expertise in running a magazine, at least of the paper-and-ink variety. My taking on this role is because of that, and not because I am a moderator here, which is a completely separate role that has nothing to do with teemings.
So –- for now: comments and suggestions here, please.
If you want to get involved, please email me: teemings at gmail dot com. If you can set up the web page, let me know ASAP –- I’m dying to get started! If you want to contribute material, either with a one-time thing or possibly as an ongoing columnist, email me at the teemings account; “now” isn’t too early for that.
