permaculture

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson <lakinroe@silcom.com>]

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