about us
a handmade, volunteer-run community zine exploring the questions:
What is a place?
Who are we?
What do we dream?
Issue No. 1 · Volume One
HATCH
Submissions open: July 30
Submissions close: September 30
Publication: November 19
Launch party & community reading: November 19
The theme of our first issue is HATCH
What is beginning? What is emerging? What has been quietly growing? What is ready to crack open?
Send us your words, images, doodles, photographs, drawings, prints, recipes, ticket stubs, maps, memories, observations, lists, letters, stitched pieces, comics, found language, found objects, crumpled napkins, rain poems and train songs, matchbooks, and so on. Whatever you dream up—as long as it can be photocopied onto paper—is welcome.
Each issue is an invitation to notice, remember, wonder, imagine and dream; a record of us in community, and a gathering place for our many voices, collected one issue at a time.
Maybe for you it's the thoughts that come while sitting beside the river and watching the fog lift, or the memory of someone or something that used to be here, or a glimpse of something new that's just beginning to take root. The extraordinary lives alongside the ordinary here, and we hope about us will hold both/and everything in between.
Whether Marshall is your home place or simply a place that has found its way into your heart, if you feel a connection to this mountain town, you are part of its story, and you are invited to contribute.
Printed and bound by hand in small editions at Community Make Space, about us is part community archive, part time capsule, part process object, part love letter, and part ongoing community conversation.
about us will be handmade and unfancy, but we hope it will become something you'll want to treasure and keep—something that quiets you or makes you laugh out loud; a touchstone of belonging, a record of being human, and a portrait of us, right now, in this particular place, at this particular moment.
Submission Guidelines
Email your submission to communitymakespace@gmail.com with HATCH in the subject line.
Prefer paper? We love that too. Drop your submission into the box outside our door: Studio 101 at Marshall High Studios on the island.
Please include:
your name
your email address (so we can write back and say thank you)
and, instead of a bio, tell us why Marshall matters to you.
A few notes:
Submissions should fit on a single 8½ × 11-inch sheet of paper.
You're welcome to submit one to three pieces. Because about us is a handmade, community-produced zine with limited space, we may not be able to include every submission.
Contributors receive a complimentary photocopy of the finished issue.
Complimentary copies will be available for local pickup at Community Make Space by November 19. If you'd like yours mailed instead, we're happy to send it for a $8 shipping and handling fee.
A limited hand-bound variable edition of 50 numbered copies will also be available for purchase. Proceeds will help cover the cost of paper, ink, photocopying, binding materials, and future issues of about us.
Please submit copies rather than irreplaceable originals whenever possible. While we'll take great care with every submission, we can't guarantee the return of original artwork or objects.
Because space is limited, we may not be able to include every submission. Pieces may be lightly edited for length or clarity, and contributors may be contacted with questions. Our goal is to honor every voice while creating a cohesive issue.
Contributors retain the rights to their work. By submitting, contributors grant about us permission to reproduce, publish, and distribute their work as part of this issue of the zine—including complimentary copies for contributors and copies sold to support the project—as well as in future exhibitions, archives, or promotions of about us.
Everyone is invited to contribute. Please tell a friend.
Save the Date:
Celebratory launch party & community reading
Thursday, November 19, 6:30 pm
French Broad Book Exchange, 63 S Main St.
Want to Get Involved?
about us is a DIY, handmade, volunteer-run community zine.
Every issue comes together through many hands—reading submissions, arranging pages, photocopying, folding, collating, stitching, binding, delivering copies, organizing readings, writing notes, making tea, encouraging one another, and a hundred other small acts of care.
If you'd like to be part of bringing this little publication into the world, we'd love to hear from you.
Please email communitymakespace@gmail.com and type HATCH VOLUNTEER in the subject line.
Thank you!
xoxoxo
the about us team