Call for Submissions: “Back to School” issues of Raging Chicken Press

As most readers of the XChange know, I’ve spent a good deal of time this summer working on my latest project, Raging Chicken Press.  I am happy to say that the July and August issues have been quite a success and we’ve gotten some excellent feedback and responses.  We are now looking to the beginning of the school year. Here is the Call for Submissions for our September and October “Back to School” issues. I hope readers of the XChange will consider contributing, or will pass the word to friends who would be interested in doing so. Here’s the call:

Raging Chicken Press is now accepting submission for the September and October issues.  We are dubbing these two issues the “Back to School” issues for a couple of reasons.  First, this will be the first academic year since Corbett and his Republican cabal gutted public education from kindergarten through college. Students returning to school this fall face increased challenges as class sizes increase, favorite teachers were given walking papers, and extracurricular activities have been slashed.  In short, this fall will be the first year of the Corbett model of education: fend for yourselves.

But we are calling these issues the “Back to School” issues for another reason.  Here at Raging Chicken Press, we believe that it’s time for progressives, activists, and organizers to rethink effective political action.  The right-wing wave that began in Wisconsin and has swept through Republican dominated states during the first part of 2011, shows the bankrupt nature mainstream political action.  As Dustin Slaughter argued in the August issue,

We often cling to the misconception that real change comes from parliamentary measures and the ballot box.  But in so doing, we each shoulder a forgetting that meaningful reform, be it in labor struggles or the civil rights movements of our past, were not accomplished through legislation.  Reforms were, and will always be, achieved by direct action. In spite of itself direct action has at times turned violent (as the struggle for labor rights illustrated), but just as often it manifests its message in non-violent civil disobedience: sit-ins, marches, boycotts. The machinery of government is slow, and it suggests through its impotence the need for responsive measures. The groundwork for peaceful, radical reform techniques has already been paved for us in historical stone. We as a people now need to find the courage to throw ourselves at “the machine.”

We couldn’t agree more. In a sense, it is critical that we go “Back to School” to remind us that meaningful change and effective resistance requires us to take a stand, draw lines, and fight back.  Rational discourse can only be effective when bolstered by organized “communities of resistance,” as Rachel Riedner and Kevin Mahoney argued in Democracies to Come: Rhetorical Action, Neoliberalism, and Communities of Resistance. But going “Back to School” does not mean retreating to libraries; it means relearning the lessons of struggle through involvement in concrete struggles happening right now.

As this call for submissions goes out, 45,000 Verizon workers enter the twelfth day of their strike, right-wing PA Republicans are holding hearings on anti-union “right to work” legislation, Corbett and PA Republicans are handing over large stretches of public land to the natural gas industry. The list goes on and on.

If you are interested in submitting your work for one of these issues, you can do so by sending an email to ragingchickenpress@gmail.com.  Please take a few minutes to review our Submission Guidelines to familiarize yourself with the kind of work we publish and the purpose of our publication.

Deadline for the September issue is 8/31/2011.

Deadline for the October issue is 9/28/2011.

As always, the earlier you get us your submission the better. We look forward to hearing from you!

Bread and Roses,
Kevin Mahoney
Editor Zero, Raging Chicken Press

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Second Issue of Raging Chicken Press is Up!

Hey all…I’ve been storing up a whole lot of stuff for the XChange.  Ever since Cevallos sent his “update” to the faculty I have wanted to get cranking on the XChange again.  But, I had to get this little project together before I turned back to the XChange.  So, here it is:

The second issue of Raging Chicken Press is now up!  In my experience, the second issue of a new publication is always difficulty to get out.  A lot of energy gets spent mobilizing for the launch of the inaugural issue and just when you think you’ve got a little breathing room, deadlines for the next issue are just around the corner. I am quite pleased at how well this issue came together.  Not only did we get some stellar submissions, all the contributions this time round are interconnected. I hope that you like our second issue as much as the first!

This issue of Raging Chicken Press features:

• “History Demands Nonviolent Resistance from Us,” by Dustin Slaughter
• “‘Accountability’ Isn’t Enough [Some Angry Language],” by Seth Kahn
• “Those Fracking Letters to the Editor,” by Wendy Lee
• “One Big Company Town: Frack the Future,” by Kevin Mahoney
• “Book Review: Naomi Schaeffer Riley, The Faculty Lounges,” by Amanda Lynch Morris
• “A Letter to America and Her People,” by J. Rizzo Mertz
• “This Video is for Rich People Only | MOC #65,” by Lee Camp
• “No Need for Conspiracy Theories: The Inside Story on Why Cenk Uyger Left MSNBC,” by Kevin Mahoney
• “Don’t Frack Your Mother,” graphic by Michelle Sayles

I hope this issue will generate as much excitement as our last issue.  I’m also already looking forward to our September issue which will be a “Back to School” issue.  The call for submissions for the September issue will be out very, very soon.

We’ll also be rolling out some exciting new things for the fall.  Beginning in September, Raging Chicken Press will be holding monthly “meet-ups” the week after an issue is published — locations to be announced, so stay tuned.  These meet-ups will allow Raging Chicken Press contributors, fans, family, and friends to have a chance to talk and network. From the beginning, Raging Chicken Press has sought to contribute to building progressive, social movements not just write about them.

In the coming months I will also increase my calls to help support the work of Raging Chicken Press.  As you know, you can help contribute to our work by using the links on the right side of our site to give donations, pick up some Raging Chicken Press gear, or simply shop at Amazon.com or Powells.com.  I hope we can keep Raging Chicken Press a community supported independent, progressive media site.

So, let us know what you think!

Kevin Mahoney

Editor Zero, Raging Chicken Press

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