6. Writing for future issues.
This is the sixth post in a seven-part series about Distance, a quarterly journal for long essays about design. Support Distance on Kickstarter. Earlier posts:
- Distance’s introduction.
- 1. Essays and rants.
- 2. Editorial strategy.
- 3. Citation technique.
- 4. Rebuttals and responses.
- 5. Revisions in the afterlife.
Because so few people knew what we were working on, we could take as much time as needed to publish Distance’s first issue. Because Distance is a quarterly publication, though, we don’t have that luxury for future issues.
Accounting for the time to write, edit, print, and any padding in case things go wrong in authors’ lives, we’ll be planning issues x+1 and x+2 when we are printing issue x. So many things can go wrong during all three simultaneous processes, and many of them are out of my control, so I’m left balancing the desire to make something truly great with the rigors of a quarterly schedule. Those of you who have known me for a long time know that deadlines are a fake idea that I am willing to shirk with great aplomb, but this remains the scariest proposition of the whole thing.
Issues 2 and 3 are being planned right now, and issue 4 is starting in small ways. Issue 2’s authors have already been announced. Each issue has a theme, which will be divulged once the essays’ first drafts are in. Essays can fit these themes as loosely as the writers want, and I expect them to be all over the map, because (as an editor and reader) that is part of the fun of it.
I am contacting a lot of people myself, but if you want to write, or know somebody who might be interested, you should get in touch right now. Imagine me putting my beer down and looking you straight in the eye and saying that sentence very slowly.
There.
In the past few process articles, I’ve talked as much as I can about my editorial strategy and current expectations. I hope that I have done this in a way that sounds appealing to prospective writers. I am very much selling the idea as much to writers as I am to readers. I know that readers are really excited about it, but a publication is only as good as its writing, and that writing could very well be penned by you. So let’s make something great together, something we’ll both feel really proud of.
