There are three ways you can get involved in the Upper New Review community.

• You can volunteer (in a variety of ways).
• You can contribute your creative works.
• You can subscribe to the Upper New Review (when the time comes).

Let’s talk about Volunteering and Contributing.  Keep scrolling!

Volunteers!

We need all sorts of volunteers to join our efforts at The Upper New Review.  There are different opportunities for reviewers, editors, and the “Stream Team”, as well as internships for currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students.

Read on to find out more…

Reviewers. 

We’re looking for a handful of reviewers to join our team.  Preferably, we want a variety of backgrounds that can cover all our bases for the different types of art, literature, and “other stuff” that people will submit to the magazine.

Reviewing experience preferred!  We would love to find folks who have some level of experience serving in a review capacity.  We’re also open to folks who are looking to get their feet wet.  The review process for The Upper New Review submissions is pretty straightforward, and we’ll be providing quite a bit of support.  Remember: we’re all lifelong learners!

Reviewers will be paid an honorarium for their efforts, and get a free digital subscription, for starters.  We’re still working out the details, but we definitely want to keep our team happy and motivated!

Editors.

We’re looking for two editors: one for arts, one for literature.  We’re trying to play the job description pretty loose, hoping that the first two editors help us define the space.  But the editors are definitely going to be involved in decisions about content that passes muster for the website and print publication.

Previous experience required.  We need our two editors to jump in and hit the ground running, so be prepared to tell us about your experiences with editing, both successes and failures.

Editors will be paid an honorarium for their efforts, and get a free digital subscription, for starters.  We’re still working out the details, but we definitely want to keep our team happy and motivated!

The Stream Team.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the concept of street teams?  These are the teammates who help spread the good word!

At the Upper New Review, our street team is called The Stream Team.  Get it?

We need boots on the ground, all around.  We need folks to help us with organic posting and sharing on all the social media channels, and we need help handing out flyers and postcards, and we need help with general word of mouth throughout the communities of the Upper New River basin, as well as the rest of the world.

It doesn’t matter where you live.  If you want to join the Stream Team, we’ll give you a chance to tell us why.  You’re passionate about the environment, literature, and the arts, and so are we!

Find the stories.  Encourage everyone to share them.

For starters, members of the Stream Team get an exclusive t-shirt and a free digital subscription.  We’re still figuring out the rest of the package of goodies we’re going to put together.  If you’ve got suggestions, let us know!

Internships!

We want to offer course credit internships for undergraduate and graduate students in the Upper New River basin.  So, if you’re a student at Appalachian State University, Radford University, or Virginia Tech, and you want to get involved in some real world work with a hybrid publication operation, this is a great opportunity.

These are the kinds of work we’re hoping to provide for our interns:

• publishing
• writing
• editing
• research
• social media project/campaign management
• “organic” marketing methods
• SEO and web analytics
• photography
• graphics and multimedia design
• filmmaking
• animation
• audio production
• GIS
• data visualization
• environmental studies

If this sounds like something in your wheelhouse, check with the relevant internship coordinator in your department, school, college, division, etc. and make sure you can get proper credit.

Let’s figure out a way to make an internship work for you!

Contributors!

We need all sorts of contributors to send in work to The Upper New Review.

We need writers.

We need poets.

We need visual artists and creators.

We need motion-based artists and creators.

We need performance artists and creators.

We need recording artists and creators.

We need interactive media artists and creators.

We need researchers.

We need data wizards.

Every creator accepted for publication on the website or in the magazine gets an Upper New Review contributor profile on the website.

Writers.

You’re a writer.  You write fiction or nonfiction.  Prose.

We want long form prose (up to 10,000 words).  Something that takes a little while to read.

We want short form prose (1500 – 5000 words).

When your work is accepted for publication in our print magazine, we will hybridize your work with QR codes, linking back to your contributor profile on the website, as well as any other ancillary materials that may be relevant to your accepted piece.  Keep this in mind as you craft your submission.

Got questions?  Drop us a line.

If you would like to stay in the loop about future submission opportunities, please join our mailing list!

Poets.

You’re a poet.

While we love the idea of epic poems, we’re looking for something a bit shorter, regardless of form (ballad, villanelle, free verse, haiku, etc.).

Anything under a page in length should probably fit the bill.

Send us up to four poems in one submission – your choice!

There will be opportunities for hybridization (via QR codes) for poetry accepted for print publication.

Got questions?  Drop us a line.

If you would like to stay in the loop about future submission opportunities, please join our mailing list!

Artists.

You’re a photographer.  Maybe you’ve got some photo essays?

You’re a painter.  You’re an illustrator.  Or you like to draw and sketch.  You make pictures with your hands.

You’re a 3D artist or creator.  We’re talking about real 3D works, like sculpture you can touch, and all the virtual stuff too.  Something with some kind of volumetric form.

You’re an installation artist or creator.  You make things that don’t move, but maybe people can move around through them to explore all the angles?

You’re a mixed media artist or creator.  You don’t really like to pigeonhole or define your work with standard labels.  That’s cool.  We get it.

Here’s the thing.  Can you take a photo of your creative works and print that photo in two dimensions on a piece of paper?  Yes?  Well, that’s what counts as visual art in our book.

Quite similar to the writing submission process, when your visual art is accepted for publication in our print magazine, we will hybridize your work with QR codes, linking back to your contributor profile on the website, as well as any other ancillary materials that may be relevant to your accepted piece.  For example, we’d love to host a video tour of your sculpture or environmental art installation, or a  video of your creative process, forming your work.  Keep this in mind as you craft your submission.

Got questions?  Drop us a line.

If you would like to stay in the loop about future submission opportunities, please join our mailing list!

Motion-Based Work.

You’re a filmmaker.  Or you have another way to describe yourself, but you make moving pictures.

These moving pictures involve live action or some kind of animation.

You’re creating some kind of dynamic visual narrative that is fiction, nonfiction, or somewhere in between.

But in the end, whatever you’re creating, you can serve it up as a video that can be watched on a screen.

Obviously, we can’t print moving pictures.  We can, however, print stills, and a feature story about the work.  When we accept motion-based works for publication, they’ll be on the website for sure.  We hope to also feature a variety of our motion-based artists in each quarterly print issue, linking with QRs back to the work on our website.  We want to work with contributors to form this hybridization process as we go!

Got questions?  Drop us a line.

If you would like to stay in the loop about future submission opportunities, please join our mailing list!

Performance Artists.

You’re a performer.

You’re an actor.  Or a troupe of actors.  It’s live theatre, indoors or outdoors.

You’re a stand up comedian.

You’re a dancer.  Or an ensemble.  You’re a mover.   You do kinetic work.

You dive naked into an inflatable swimming pool full of spaghetti noodles.  (True story!)

You move through time and space.  You are creating a trail of activity as an artifact.  It’s being recorded in some way shape or form.

You’re doing something interesting that we want to see.

This is pretty much the same drill as we described for motion-based works above.   We can print stills captured of your performance, as well as a feature story about the work.  Obviously we can host multimedia content about your performance on the website.  We hope to also feature a variety of our performance artists in each quarterly print issue, linking with QRs back to the work on our website.  We are quite excited to collaborate with contributors to figure out this hybridization process.

Got questions?  Drop us a line.

If you would like to stay in the loop about future submission opportunities, please join our mailing list!

Recording Artists.

You’re a singer, and maybe you write your own songs.  Let’s hear ‘em, loud and clear!

You’ve got a band, and you’re making some kind of original music right here in the Upper New River basin.  We want to know about it, hear it, see it, feel it.

You create spoken word recordings?  Awesome!  What have you got to say next?

You’ve been capturing atmospheric soundscapes somewhere in the Upper New River basin.  Maybe they’re just raw recordings, maybe you’ve layered in meta-level complexities for even more aural criticism.  Fantastic!  Send us a demo.

Upon acceptance of your work, we can host audio recordings (and videos of you or your band/ensemble performing the music) on the website.  We can assemble photos and a quick write-up to feature you and your work in print (maybe print the lyrics, etc.).  What’s the story behind the song?  We’ll use the same QR system to link back to media content that can’t be printed.

Got questions?  Drop us a line.

If you would like to stay in the loop about future submission opportunities, please join our mailing list!

Interactive Media.

You design and/or develop software applications that respond to human or nonhuman and environmental stimuli.  There is some kind of information interface for the experience people have with the virtual machine you’ve created.  

Hopefully it’s pretty to look at, but it doesn’t have to be.  It needs to work the way it’s supposed to.  Even if it’s still just a prototype.

We’re talking about hybrid digital experiences.

Kiosks.  Desktop apps.  Web apps.  Mobile apps.

Smart spaces (like a room that reacts to the people inside).

Digital tools for augmented environmental exploration and understanding.

You’ve built it, it works, we want to look at the paint job, and we want to look under the hood.

What we publish in print or on the website for any accepted interactive media project will likely vary quite a bit depending on the nature of the interactive experience, both in terms of hardware and software required.  We figure we’ll just play this one by ear, taking each accepted piece on a case by case basis.  We know for sure, though, that we’ll need lots of screenshots and some narrated demo videos.

Got questions?  Drop us a line.

If you would like to stay in the loop about future submission opportunities, please join our mailing list!

Research.

You’re conducting research.  That means you’re a researcher.

You might be focused in the sciences, the social sciences, or the humanities.

Maybe it’s just you.  Maybe it’s a collaborative team.

Maybe you’re in the lab.  Maybe you’re in the field.

Maybe you’re doing interdisciplinary work.  Maybe you’re doing transdisciplinary work.

Maybe, just maybe, you’re defying the disciplines.  Maybe you’re completely undisciplined, in a good way.

Regardless: you’ve got questions, you’ve got methods, and you’ve got findings.  Maybe they’re just preliminary.  You’re still looking.  How’d you get here, and what are you going to do about it?

This hybrid publication process will be, essentially, a combination of writing, images, and multimedia content.  You may or may not be able to share the data sets associated with your research, but if you can (even if it’s anonymized, etc.), that would be great.  We also like the idea of sharing analysis syntax or protocols, which would make it much easier for other folks to replicate and verify your work, should that be relevant to the way you’re doing research.

Got questions?  Drop us a line.

If you would like to stay in the loop about future submission opportunities, please join our mailing list!

Data Visualization.

Data Scientist.  Data Analyst.  Data Engineer.  Data Architect.  Data Storyteller.

You’re doing something with data.  Individually or collaboratively.

Spatial data.  Geospatial data.  Multivariate data.  Trees, graphs, and networks.

The eight visual variables.  The semiology of graphics.  Data characteristics.

Maybe you’ve seen John Snow’s map from 1854 (the Broad Street water pump cholera outbreak).  That’s the basic idea.  We’ve come a long way since then, in some ways.

Whatever you call yourself, you work with data and visualizations to make decisions (or to help others make decisions), big or small.

Data are being visualized to tell a story, preferably with high reliability and validity.  Preferably with intuitive beauty.  Not necessarily aesthetic beauty, but definitely functional beauty.

You’ve built intuitively beautiful data visualizations for sensemaking through what might be an interactive narrative. Maybe they’re static, maybe they’re dynamic.  

Simply put, for any accepted work of data visualization, we’ll consider the static visualizations for print publication, and we’ll host all the dynamic visualizations on the website.  We’ll figure out the best way to tell the story of how the visualizations came to be, and for what purpose.  Hopefully that will be something that you’ve included with your submission!

Got questions?  Drop us a line.

If you would like to stay in the loop about future submission opportunities, please join our mailing list!