Call for Articles for "Urban Communities & Ecovillages

Communities Magazine website http://communities.ic.org/
Hello,,

        This is a Call for Articles for "Urban Communities & Ecovillages -- the theme of our Winter '05 issue of Communities magazine. It will be out in late December. Topics:

* Do we need sustainable intentional communities and
ecovillages _ more _ in cities and towns than in suburban or rural areas?

* How can we create more community connection and
‘community spirit’ in our town and city neighborhoods?

* What unique gifts do city & town communities offer?
         (cultural/intellectual stimulation, access to jobs, lower cost of living from shared resources, opportunity for bicycling, opportunity to use public transportation instead of cars, other . . . ?)

        * What are some challenges of city & town communities?  (privacy issues, safety issues, noise, traffic, other?)

* Is your town or city community preparing for peak oil?
* If so, how?

* We're especially seeking questions and articles from cohousers.

If you're interested in submitting an article, please email me at communities@ic.org or call 828-669-9702 with your article idea or question by September 27, 2005.

Word length is from 900 to 2500 words, and we're seeking articles written in a reader-friendly popular-magazine style (rather than in academic style). If you'd like to write an article, let me know and I'll send you our Writers Guidelines.

The deadline for the finished article is October 10, 2005. Better yet, Oct. 3rd. of possible (earlier articles get priority consideration.)

(If you'll be sending photos, please email or postal mail them to me by October 10 also.)
        
I am sending this to you because you have either written for Communitiesmagazine before, or inquired about writing for us, because I hope you might submit an article one day, or because you subscribe to Cohousing_L

(If you would like me to remove you from this 'Call for Articles' email list, please let me know.)

I. WHAT "SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE" MEANS.We will promise to read your article, but we may respectfully decline it and not publish it, or save it and publish it in a future issue. We also reserve the right to edit, shorten, or revise your article. Most of the time we contact authors about this ahead of time and get their comments, corrections, etc.

II. GETTING PERMISSION AHEAD OF TIME.Please send the article only when you have permission from anyone you need it from, such as fellow community members. It's difficult for us to get all set to run an article only to find that the author's fellow community members say No at the last minute.

III. PUBLICATION RIGHTS.Once your article appears in Communitiesmagazine, we own first North American Publishing Rights. This means your article can't be excerpted or reprinted in another publication in North America without our permission. (Which applies to you as author too.) We almost always give permission, and unlike commercial magazines, don't charge for it.

IV. PHOTOS.We will also want hard-copy photos (including snapshots) or high-resolution digital photos of people and/or communities to illustrate your story.

Photos can be vertical or horizontal, black & white or color (we print in black & white inside the magazine). If you send hard copies, we return them after the issue is published. (Communitiesmagazine, 1025 Camp Elliott Rd., Black Mtn., NC 28711.)

        If you use a digital camera, a 3 megapixel camera with the setting at the highest resolution is the _ minimum _ needed. This will yield photos at 300 to 350 dpi (dots per inch) at 5" x 7" size. This means the images will be high enough resolution for the printed page. Photos from a website do not work.

        (We can only use lower-resolution digital photos at a final printed size of about 2" x 2". These can sometimes be included as adjunct photos in an article, but we must have higher resolution photos as well.)

        If you send your photo as a jpeg image, please do not compress it first.

        PLEASE DO NOT SEND PHOTO IMAGES TO ME PERSONALLY UNLESS YOU SEND THEM AT _ LOW-RESOLUTION _ , AND ONLY ONE AT A TIME!  (We ain't got no DSL yet here in the mountains!)

        I'll let you know which photos we'll use, and you can send them, at HIGH resolution, to our layout manager, John Morris.

        If you would like to submit an article but cannot supply photos, that's fine. Just let me know in advance! Then if we use your article we'll get an illustrator, but we need plenty of notice ahead of time for this. Thank you.

V. COVER PHOTOS.We have color covers (at last!), and are also seeking vertically oriented, color photos for our front cover. We pay $150 for a cover photo we publish.

        Are you interested?

        For a cover photo (which 'sells' the magazine to newsstand browsers), we're seeking _ vertical _  photos of one or two people (or even three) in the foreground or mid-foreground, engaged in doing something, or looking at the camera, with a community-type 'scene' visible behind them, with something kind of blank, or relatively low contrast in the upper right or upper left corner (where we can put the issue name and article titles.) The people should look right into the camera (so they can bridge to the newsstand browser), with expressions of happiness, contentment, thoughtfulness, or engagement, etc.

.         A 3-megapixel to an 8-megapixel camera is ideal for shooting a cover photo. We are seeking from 166 dpi to 175, 182 or much higher dpi (dots per inch) at an 8-1/2" x11" sized photo. If you send your photo as a jpeg image, please do not compress it first. AND CHECK WITH ME FIRST ON OUR LAYOUT MANAGER'S EMAIL ADDRESS; PLEASE DON'T SEND IT TO ME DIRECTLY.

Thank you very much! I look forward to hearing from you if you are inspired by this topic.        

We also publish articles on other subjects besides our issue theme, so if you have another article idea, let me know!

        Diana Leafe Christian Diana Christian

        Editor, CommunitiesMagazine

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"Ask the Experts"

Our "Ask the Experts" article worked so well in the Fall issue that we're doing it again for the Winter issue. What burning questions would you ask our experienced process and communications consultants and consensus facilitation trainers-- Laird Schaub, Tree Bressen, Caroline Estes, & Bea Briggs?

Examples of possible 'burning questions':
"Some of our members often have 'blocking energy.' Others here say there's no such thing! What do you think?"
"We have a guy here who won't fulfill his work requirements. What should we do?"
"Some quieter people have good ideas outside of meetings, but clam up and won't say anything in meetings. We're missing their good input! How can we get them to open up publicly and contribute more?"

These are just samples. What burning questions do _ you _ have? What issues are up in your community right now?
Please send questions to communities@ic.org by September 27, 2005.Thank you!
Diana Leafe Christian
Editor, Communities magazine