WORDS Brent Rosen
After celebrating our one year anniversary, we did what every one-year-old does, and spent a lot of time thinking through our mission, our goals, and how we could better provide the Montgomery and greater Alabama community with the information that it wants and deserves. Wait, were you expecting me to say that we drank a bottle of milk and pooped our pants.? We're not that kind of one-year-old, or at least haven't been since college.
We realized we need to increase our interactivity, so we are bringing in more monthly columnists. One columnist will provide life advice, the other sex advice. The more abhorrent the conduct or bizarre the sex, the better. Our columnists will remain anonymous as will the identities of the advice seekers. Send us your questions and we will publish some answers.
We have also decided to stop pretending that it's 1996 and the internet barely exists. Expect more frequent updates to the website and more posts on our facebook and instagram accounts. We are kind of over twitter, although none of us can quite put our fingers on why. If you are out and about and go somewhere or see something you think MADE should have a look at, use the hashtag #madepaper, and we'll give it a look. So far people have told us to look at Truman's catfish restaurant outside Wetumpka, Jakes Fishing Club on Pintlala Creek, and some exciting Alabama-related clothing designers in New York and San Francisco. Tag your recommendations and we will follow up.
The other day I read an article about an old-school newspaper editor working in Boston or New York -- I don't remember -- who said he turned essayists into reporters by forcing them to write shorter, more to the point articles. We are going in the opposite direction, working on more in-depth, heavily-reported, essay-type pieces. You've probably noticed this emphasis over the past few months, and we will be mixing in more long-form work into the paper in addition to our quicker-reading style, makers, drink, and food sections.
Our goal in featuring long-form work is the goal we've always had: we want to find the local stories that have been overlooked or underreported and give them their due. This month we have a long story about moonshine in Bullock County; I think it's something you will enjoy. Later this summer we'll have some stories on places to visit for Labor Day day-trips, and I promise we won't just publish press releases from various hotels across the Southeast. As we leave Summer and head into Fall, we are launching MADE Sports, and will have the Bamaist and the Auburnist ready to give you their unique weekly takes before Game Day.
The final announcement is something you'll already have noticed -- we experimented with a different type of paper and size for our commemorative Southern Makers issue, and we've decided we really like it. From now on, we are going with the larger format and higher quality to show off the amazing work of our photographers and designers. I know most people pick up MADE at the coffee shop, at lunch or at brunch, and often only have time to flip through and look at the pictures. This change is for you.
As always, we appreciate your readership and welcome your comments at editor@madepaper.com.