WINTER EDITION

Hello and happy Thanksgiving from In Preparation, the official literary journal/zine/print-thing of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's undergraduate BFA-Writing program!
Hello! How's your year been?
Like it or not-- and we're on the fence-- 2009 is wrapping up, and we're printing one more In Preparation for the 2000-oughts! Please submit your work by Monday, December 7th. We'll be printing during the week of Monday, December 14th, so kindly respect the deadline! (Distribution on the SAIC campus will be split between finals week and the start of the Spring '10 semester.)

Please submit ONLY docs, pdfs, jpegs, and links to videos. (Rest assured, visual artists, we'll ultimately print from your original files)

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Here are a few sentences of glancing introduction:

Our primary focus is sharing our contributors' work with a large audience. Working with/at/within the constructs and restrictions of a 2-d publication is our level 2 focus. Our only submission guideline is to send the work that you are proud of, for whatever reason that might be. If you're not sure what to but are interested in possibly submitting then by all means, just shoot us email and say as much. Some of out favorite pieces have risen from, what was at the offset, a seemingly aimless selection and collaboration. As we publish under the auspices of the BFAW program, many of our pages are dedicated to text, and the text-based.

That said, we take great pride in the fact that in the last year In Preparation has grown from an issue with 9 poems from only 3 poets, to our most recent issue featuring 21 wholly different pieces/mediums/approaches from 18 very different artists. So, while we do love poetry, we'll seriously consider anything. A special note to all the lovely 4-D artists: our website and online edition can be your home, too!

Our position is that the work we all make has no middle or end, and as such, our goal is to facilitate the contiguous line of conversation that all of our work is capable of, wants, and deserves to have. You made it, we love it, let's share it.

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OK, but some of the more industrious of you that want to make new art, and the others who are still not sure what to they'd like to submit, we have a theme. For those of you uninterested, feel free to skip down an * and start submitting.

Recently, we had the good fortune of conducting an interview with Theo Jansen (http://www.strandbeest.com/, and TED talks) that will be including in this edition. Anyone looking for a springboard for work should check out what he's done and go from there.

Still not enough? Some things you might at look at are issues of evolution (non-human and otherwise, deliberate vs organic, etc), the life and lives of animate and/or/vs non-animate objects (perhaps like strandbeests, where inanimate sounds obsolete), artificial life, etc, etc, ad nauseum. These could all be places to look, and the looser the connection the more fun it'll be for us to fit in. So go forth and fall your apples towards other trees! Or... or far from this tree, or Theo's tree. But maybe still resemble his apples. Or your own apples. Or... something? It's a loose connection.

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Did you read all the way to here? That was really nice of you-- thanks!

For your trouble, here is a link to our (soon-to-be-remodeled) website:
www.inpreparationzine.blogspot.com

And our very sincere appreciation for any of the work you decide to send us.

Best,

In Preparation