GenPox: The State Of The Webzine
Generation Apocalypse Webzine is starting to take shape, and I’m really excited about what the future holds in store for it. But before we get to that, let me tell you what’s going on with it right now and what The Plan is for the next few weeks.
The way I see it, there are three basic phases to getting the site to where I think it could be: the first was to get something up and running that I could work with, which is the phase I’ve been in pretty much until now. I think I’m finally ready to move on to phase two: making the site not suck. (Phase 3 will be making the site good – but you gotta crawl before you walk, so first we make it not suck.)
GenPox Phase 2: Making It Not Suck
There are two basic ways I am trying to make the site not suck: first, trying to make the site itself more usable, and second, getting more stuff on here to actually use. There are of course a lot of little tasks that go into making a website not suck, but these are generally how I’m organizing them:
Tasks to Unsuck GenPox.com
- Make it easier to read, especially on mobile. I knew exactly zero stuffs about making websites two months ago, so bear with me because at least we’re heading in the right direction on this, I think.
- Make the site more navigable. See excuse above, it applies here, too lol.
- Get more content. I’m hoping to spend less time on web design stuff that I’m not really good at anyway to focus on writing up and posting a few articles I’ve been back burnering for a few weeks now.
- Get more content that isn’t mine. I will be making a concerted effort over the next few weeks to bring more people on board, now that there is something to get on board, as well as reaching out for general submissions.
- Create a social space. It’s not much of an online community if there’s nowhere to commune, amirite?
I think that pretty much covers the general plan of GenPox.com Phase 2: The Unsuckening. So let’s get into some of what the site has now and how they fit into the unsuckening process.
Welcome to The Pox General – an online meeting place for people who still care about Humanity and the Planet. We got a few different forums set up right now, and seeing how things go, we may add some more.
Clearly this is the social space mentioned in The Plan above. Full disclosure: I’m not really a fan of comments directly in articles in general, but I am a big fan of talking about texts with other people – so some the forums at The Pox General will be set up specifically to discuss content published on Generation Apocalypse Webzine.
But of course there’s a lot more to discuss than a few texts on an obscure webzine – so there are some general topic forums but also forums about texts that aren’t from here at all. For example, I’ve set up two forums for talking about sci-fi/fantasy short stories – one for classic stuff one for contemporary stuff. Why these? Because I think reading groups are fun, and there are a lot of incredible sff short stories out there that (a) can be found on-line; (b) good stories give people a lot to talk about; and (c) we’re on the verge of a legit renaissance if we can avoid stumbling over a few cliffs during the next little while – there are so many people making such incredible art out there these days, and having one more place to discover a new favorite author or literary journal ain’t a bad reason to do something at all.
Anyway, come on over and check it out – then be sure to register so you can join in all the fun with your brothers, sisters, and nb-sibs of Generation Apocalypse!
Coming Soon to Generation Apocalypse Webzine:
So my strategy here is to Field of Dreams the website (Zine of Dreams, if you will) – by that I mean “Build It And They Will Come” if you aren’t very far into your Kevin Costner filmography watchlist – and by that I mean I’m making some sections of the site that have nothing in them yet with the idea that building spaces for various projects is a better way to attract those projects than not having those spaces. simple as.
Anyway, here is what I’ve been working on so far – I hope to need to add more soon, but in the meantime take a look around, and if you get inspired to share something at Generation Apocalypse Webzine, then hit up the Submissions & Collaborations page for the general guidelines as well as the links for submissions.
Fiction & Storytelling
Generation Apocalypse Webzine’s Stories From The End Of The World & The Start Of A New Tomorrow will house all of the various storytelling projects we hope to get going.
From the Epic of Gilgamesh all the way up to the reasons you tell your boss you can’t come in today – I love me a good story, so I hope to add a lot of Storytelling Projects like our first project “Lit Bits” over the next few weeks slash months (little by little, of course) – like Lit Bits in the sense of having a simple prompt with a poop-ton of room for riffing within the structure provided by the prompt.
So, if you love stories like we do (honestly, who doesn’t love stories? Duds, that’s who.), then check back often to see what’s new, and if there are any Projects that speak to Storyteller in you and then create and submit your own! (Read Submission Guidelines Here)
If you have an idea for a story you’d like to share right now, email us at: [email protected].
If you have a Lit Bit story ready to share then email it to: [email protected].
At Generation Apocalypse Webzine we are collecting voices of people who care about the world and the people in it and giving them a place to share their thoughts about all of it.
Check back frequently to hear some new voices. If you’d like to submit an idea for a column, please check the submission guidelines here, then if you think we’d make a good fit email us at: columns.submissions.genpox.com.
Featured Columns
GenPox’s Culture & Society page is where we house all of our ongoing featured columns. We figure that “Culture and Society” together encompass pretty much everything that people talk about – Life as a Human (AI Punks Fuck Off!), in other words.
Life as a Human during what is shaping up to be a rather stressful and traumatic era of both human and geologic history – there’s gonna be a lot to talk about.
Pictures From The End Of The World
We live in such a rich and amazing world. Despite the fact that them bastards have been trying to pave it all to put up their parking lots, this is still a Paradise Planet. Sure, it can be brutal at times – but still there is a lot worth sharing and here you will find links to the various photo projects shared by our contributors.
The World is big and each of us are pretty small – sometimes that’s a bummer, but here is where it is the biggest asset we could be possibly have: the ridiculously disproportionate ratio between the bigness of the world compared to each of us as an individual means that all of our perspectives are going to be unique (some closer to others, a lot of overlap, but nonetheless distinct in the details, which is what matters here).
One of the cool things about the World today is that most of us have the tools to share glimpses of those perspectives – and sometimes those glimpses really capture something that is worth sharing.
Such Beautiful Disasters, Us will house the Photo Projects that center Humans as their subject matter – not only portrait photography but Projects based on Hair-Styling, Make-Up, & Fashion.
If you have an idea for a Photo Project, please email us at: [email protected]
We Got The Music In Us
Here at Generation Apocalypse Webzine We Got The Music In Us – or at least we hope to soon lol. Anyway, this is where we will put all of the Music Projects that people end up sharing on here.
If you have any ideas for a project that you would like to share, please email us at: [email protected].
We Hope That’s Love In Our Tummies
Here at GenPox, you know We Got Love In Our Tummies – just look at our pal, Shilo, enjoying a taste. Food is such a universal art-form, we all love it and we all like to talk about it. Except for the people who don’t, who probably shouldn’t bother going to Food pages of websites, so it’s ok if we ignore them in this case lol.
If you have any Food Projects you would like to share, please email us at: [email protected].
Anyway, that’s what The State Of The Webzine at the moment. I’m hoping to speed up Phase 2 as much as I can, but right now just I’m happy that the unsuckening is proceeding at all. But still, I’m hopeful about it and having something to be hopeful about these days is a pretty big victory in itself, so that’s what I’m focusing on.
And honestly, if you made it this far through my ramblings you might as well complete the quest and head over to The Pox General Forums and join the community!
About Me
