Cool fellowship opportunity – details here www.mediaideation.org/applications-open and below. -Mia

America Abroad is looking for stories about entrepreneurs and startups. Details and contact info below. -Mia

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America Abroad's turning an eye to the economy this month, and specifically towards entrepreneurs and startups. If you have a good story to tell about someone who has (or hasn't) overcome obstacles in opening a store, staying in the US, or starting up a business, we want to hear it. In particular, we're looking for stories that have not just a personal element, but also get at the policy hurdles and red tape entrepreneurs have to deal with. Please get in touch at acvaldez@americaabroadmedia.org.

The latest from UnionDocs – details on September/October events below. -Mia

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Images of Asian Music and At Sea with Peter Hutton

Sunday, September 16 at 7:30pm

$9 suggested donation. 

Peter Hutton’s unforgettable films, typically shot and exhibited on 16mm, often portray landscapes and cityscapes from around the world. Here we present his sublime, At Sea, which overviews the life cycle of a container ship (recently awarded the top spot on Film Comment’s Best of the Decade: Avant-Garde list). Proceeding this we will screen Hutton’s Images of Asian Music, which recalls his time as a US Merchant Marine in Southeast Asia in the early 1970′s.

Running Stumbled: A benefit screening for John Maringouin

Saturday, September 22 at 7:30pm

Sliding scale donation $10-20

As the film community rallies in support of beloved documentary filmmaker, John Maringouin in his ongoing battle against lung cancer, we will screen Running Stumbled to benefit the director and support his recovery. In order to help raise funds for his surgery, all revenues from the box office will be given directly to the John Maringouin Surgery Fund (click the link to donate now before campaign officially ends September 4th). Maringouin cites his inspiration for Running Stumbled to films such as the Maysles brothers’ Grey Gardens, Bela Tarr’s Sátántangó and Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey-Boy. It premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival and shocked audiences at CineVegas.

Prologue with Raed Rafei

Sunday, September 30 at 7:30pm

$9 suggested donation.

The current furor over dramatic shifts that continue throughout the Middle East and North Africa often obscure the significant political protest and social actions that have set the stage for contemporary revolutionary fervor. Prologue is a film that offers audiences imagined yet intimate portraits of young activists in 1974. The film collapses time and offers testimony as an aesthetic project by giving young Lebanese activists a platform to tell the story of their forebears, and reveals a complex narrative of agitation, direct action and rebellion. The film toggles between past and present, imagined history and reality, to create a platform that engenders a dialogue with the past, an action that is often marked as taboo in the Lebanese context.

My Brooklyn with Kelly Anderson

Sunday, October 7 at 7:30pm

Suggested donation $9

 My Brooklyn follows director Kelly Anderson’s journey, as a Brooklyn gentrifier, to understand the forces reshaping her neighborhood. The film documents the redevelopment of Fulton Mall, a bustling African-American and Caribbean commercial district that – despite its status as the third most profitable shopping area in New York City – is maligned for its inability to appeal to the affluent residents who have come to live around it. As a hundred small businesses are replaced by high rise luxury housing and chain retail, Anderson uncovers the web of  corporations, politicians and secretive public-private partnerships that drive seemingly natural neighborhood change. The film’s ultimate question is increasingly relevant on a global scale: who has a right to live in cities and determine their future?

 If you could help us spread the word about these events in any of your publications, we would really appreciate it. For more information about these events, please check out the linked titles. If you do end up publishing something about the events, please let us know!

Thanks,

Caitlin Dronen

Suicide has to be one of the most difficult subjects to cover as a journalist. A couple of great pieces come to mind:

This radio piece by Jake Warga: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5031520

And this documentary by Eric Steel: http://www.thebridge-themovie.com/new/index.html (filmed in part by some good friends from jschool)

The Dart Center is offering a FREE training on covering this issue. More information here http://dartcenter.org/covering-suicide-workshop and below. -Mia

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Journalists don’t often imagine themselves faced with covering a suicide. But in the last year alone suicides of celebrities and public figures, college students and teens, soldiers and veterans, have challenged reporters, news organizations and the public alike to make sense of what happened, how it might have been prevented, and what best newsroom practices should be.

The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma invites you to attend a FREE professional training workshop on covering suicide September 21-22 in Philadelphia.

This workshop — the first of its kind — will feature local and national mental health researchers and policy experts, award-winning journalists and suicide prevention advocates to address the challenging topic of suicide. It is geared towards journalists on a range of beats, including:

– Criminal justice

– Military and veterans affairs

– Education and youth

– Health

– Obituaries

– Investigative and special-projects teams

This workshop is also designed for editors, producers and other newsroom leaders, with five spaces reserved for college journalists and/or campus media advisors.

Speakers include national and local public health and clinical experts from Columbia, Harvard, Temple and Florida State; trainers from the Poynter Institute and award-winning reporters with New York magazine, Salon.com, Rolling Stone, WHYY and beyond.

Workshop participants will be eligible to apply for $500-$1500 reporting grants being offered by the Dart Center and Scattergood Foundation.

 

Program and registration details can be found at: http://dartcenter.org/covering-suicide-workshop

Feel free to forward this invitation to colleagues who may be interested.

Questions? Email me directly at kate.black@dartcenter.org

This program is made possible by funding from the Scattergood Foundation for Behavioral Health and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

I'm not too familiar with this organization but it looks interesting and they take submissions of all kinds – print, audio, photography, etc. Check them out! Details below. – Mia

http://carte-blanche.org/submissions/

SUBMISSIONS

Guidelines for contributors

At carte blanche we believe there is more than one way to tell a story. Our mandate is to provide a venue for narrative of all forms from fiction and nonfiction, to poetry and photo essays.

carte blanche is published twice a year, in the spring and the fall.

How to submit

We accept original, previously unpublished submissions through our  online submission form ONLY. See carte-blanche.submishmash.com/submit for instructions. If you have problems using our submission form, please send us an email

Deadlines

Spring issue – March 1st (May publication)
Fall issue – September 15th (November publication)

Our reviewing period is in the few weeks following each deadline date. We do not accept new submissions during this period. Come back after our issue launch to submit for the next issue.

How to format

Text should be in Word and double-spaced (except poetry). We like it if you use Verdana 10 pt as your font.

The first page of each submission must include the author’s name, the name of the piece, its length, the category of submission, and a short bio. Each page should be numbered and include a header or footer with the name of the piece and author name. If you are submitting more than one piece, please upload each poem, story or file separately. Make it easy for us!

Simultaneous submissions: We accept simultaneous submissions. Please indicate on your cover page if you are sending your piece elsewhere and notify us immediately if it is accepted somewhere else.

Rights: We ask for first world serial rights and the right to archive your work on the website. Copyright reverts to the author upon publication.

Payment: carte blanche pays a modest honorarium per submission. We hope to increase the amount in the future.

What to send

Fiction and Nonfiction

We like narrative: a story that moves from some kind of a beginning to some kind of an end, be it short fiction, memoir, personal essay or literary journalism. If it’s well written and tells a story, we’ll consider it.

Word limit: 3500 words; maximum of two prose submissions per author per issue; each submission must be on a separate document and uploaded separately.

Poetry

Send us your best work.  From odes and haikus to free verse and sonnets, we welcome poems in any form.  Limit: 3 poems per person per submission round. Please upload each poem separately.

Translations

We accept English translations of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction written originally in French. If possible, please include the original work on which the translation is based. If we like your piece and choose to publish it, you will be required to provide proof of permission from the copyright holder of the original work to translate and publish the translation. Obtaining permission can take time, so please do so before you submit!

Graphic fiction

Along with your work, please include a brief overview of what the piece is about. If your work is selected for publication, we will contact you for a high-res version.  Final submissions must be in JPG, GIF, or PNG format.

Photography

Tell a story in 12 photos or fewer. Together, your photos should create a narrative – whether abstract or concrete – and have something to say.

Send a Word or PDF doc with your work pasted in it and include a statement, captions, and any other relevant text. If your work is selected for publication, we will contact you for a high-res version of the photo essay. Final submissions must be in JPG or PNG format.

Audio

Tell us a story in sound. This can include soundscape, documentary, spoken word, author readings, comedy, experimental, etc. Audio pieces do not need to contain words (although they can!) but they should have a

narrative progression, i.e. a beginning, middle, and end. 5 minute max per piece, submissions should be mp3 or wav files.

~ ~ ~

Now, time to use our handy online submission form!

Once you have registered, created an account, and uploaded your work, you can come back to check your status. Our reviewing period is in the few weeks following each deadline date (once in the spring, once in the fall). Depending on when you submit, please allow enough time for us to process the submissions and make our decisions. During this period we will be closed for submissions. Come back after our issue launch to submit again for the next issue.

Please keep in mind that we are a largely volunteer organization and that we have limited resources and time. But we will look at your work. Promise.

These workshops are not to be missed. Details below! -mia

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Multimedia Storytelling Series

The kdmcBerkeley Fall 2012 Multimedia Storytelling Series is brought to you by the world's premier center for applied digital communications. All workshops are led by UC Berkeley lecturers and staff, with presentations from award-winning faculty and industry leaders to give you the skills to distinguish you as an expert in digital media.

Video Storytelling

October 11-13, 2012
Learn from master storytellers techniques for capturing the attention of your audience to create engaging videos. This intensive three-day workshop is an immersion in digital video storytelling, providing hands-on video training in every phase of planning, production and digital delivery. This workshop delivers the same world-class training the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism provides its graduate students.

Register Today

Social Media for Audience Engagement

October 22-23, 2012
Beyond expanding the pool of possible connections to near limitless possibilities, social media is reshaping how we communication, learn, entertain ourselves, participate in politics and public life, search for new employees, transact business, and company-consumer relationships. Join us for two days of comprehensive training on how to leverage the power of social media and storytelling to develop audiences, trust relationships and engagement.

Register Today

Data Driven Maps

November 16-17, 2012
Data driven maps are an effective visual tool to communicate ideas, explain complex concepts, illustrate relationships or tell a story with data. This two-day workshop is a hands-on program focused on applying Geographical Information Systems (GIS) tools to visualize data with industry standard techniques. Participants will learn to use publicly available map files and data to build layered and informative maps that are easy to understand and fun to view.

Register Today

Visual Essentials for Content Creators

December 10-14, 2012
Communications professionals, journalists and educators seeking a rapid-paced immersive experience in best practices for telling stories on the web with video, photos and data will benefit from this workshop. This intensive one-week production course focuses on the art and craft of digital storytelling and features hands-on practical skills training.

Register Today

To learn more please contact:
Vicki Hammarstedt
+1.510.642.3892
Http://kdmc.berkeley.edu

From the good folks at TAL. Pitch away! -mia

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Dear This American Life friends and contributors,
This is Brian Reed writing, a producer here at TAL. Thanks so much for your responses to the last theme list. We're working on another show for early October, and we'd love to hear any pitches and ideas you have for it. Right now we're considering two themes for this show, and it could go either way depending on the stories we get. Even though the themes are similar, they might spark different kinds of ideas so I wanted to send out both for your consideration. Here they are:

WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS
Why do bad things always seem to happen all at once? And good things too? In either case, how are you supposed to deal with it all? We have one piece for this show where a comedian who's just had a string of horrible things happen to her — including getting diagnosed with cancer — goes on stage in front of a live audience and cracks jokes about all of it. We have another story about a guy who has a lot of misfortune befall him and then gets caught in a very strange and cathartic situation…in an actual rainstorm. We're looking for more stories about people who come up with inventive and surprising ways to deal with a barrage of misfortune. Or fortune. In fact, we're particularly interested in stories about lots of good things happening to someone, since we already have stories about negative things. And it doesn't only need to be about individual people — it could be a story about an organization or a town or a school. Maybe a place that had so many good things happen to it at once, people were overwhelmed and didn't really deal with it so gracefully. A story about someone with a strange superstition that seems to affect his or her fortune could work in this show too.

WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU…
This show would be about people who've made it through incredibly trying and even life-threatening situations and emerged with an interesting or surprising take on what happened to them. The saying goes "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," but it seems like a lot of times if something doesn't kill you, you end up not necessarily stronger, but different, having come to some understanding about yourself that you didn't have before. We have one story for this show about a woman with a severe mental illness that gave her compulsions to ingest things — like nails and screws — that put her life in danger. She's well now, and talks about why it felt so satisfying to do things that were so damaging to her. Another story we're considering is about a guy who was shot in Chicago, who then made amends with his shooter and refused to rat on him to police. But stories for this show don't need to be about actual life-threatening situations. Relative hardship would work too — like a story about a kid who was picked on a lot, or someone who faced repeated rejection. These could even be funny stories. Or maybe there's a story about a person who's trying desperately to get rid of someone or something, but with every tactic they try the person or thing only seems to get stronger and more impossible to get rid of.

For these two themes only, please send your pitches directly to me at brian@thislife.org.

Also, we wanted to make one last request for anecdotes for our upcoming RED/BLUE show, which we included in our last theme list: We’re interested in your best examples of just how ridiculously toxic our political discourse has become – particularly in cases where friends and family members are at odds. Are there people who you (or your friends) no longer spend time with because of their political views? Plans that have been cancelled or friendships put on hold? In general, we’d welcome any stories that illustrate the inanity of the red/blue war through the toll it’s taken on personal relationships.

Please send pitches for RED/BLUE to TAL producer Lisa Pollak at lisa@thislife.org.

As always, many thanks for your pitches. We're very appreciative!