One More Week ⌛
Our new season begins June 22
blog.sixty-seven // Yup, it’s that time of the year again. Our new season begins in just seven days—and concludes with our magazine launch on July 19.
Here’s how we’re rolling out Issue Six of Creator Mag:
Five weeks, five new videos. Episode One releases on our YouTube channel next Sunday, June 22—subscribe to make sure you don’t miss it!
We’ll tease stories from the zine in this here blog, before the print becomes available to preorder later this month.
Mark your calendars for July 18-20, as we’ll be hosting a weekend chockful of activities right here in Chicago.
We can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on for the last couple months. In the meantime, here’s Five Things I Think (I Think).
— NGL
P.S. Last blog, we reviewed the chaotic, quick-cutting art of a “bunch of friends” vlog. You you can read it here.
One :: I think we should build a website. Last blog, I asked you whether we should keep our longform stories exclusive to the print—or share them online, offering new places to engage with our work.
Here’s how that poll has shaken out so far…
Chalk me up as unsurprised! Personally, I love reading stories on websites. Building a beautiful one of our own has been on the roadmap for a while, too.
There’s really only three things holding me back from prioritizing it:
Time. The age-old constraint.
Artificial intelligence. In order to keep up with ChatGPT, search platforms are pushing AI summaries; in turn, people are clicking off less and less frequently, and digital publications that rely on search traffic for their websites are being hit hard.
The experience. There’s something about sitting down to read a story in print. It forces you to log off and truly appreciate every slice of work that went into crafting the thing—design, photography, and the writing itself. There is no never-ending scroll; we want to provide that experience, and champion it.
Still, accessibility is important, and you all made your voices heard. One reader, Noah, shared this idea:
“You should put it in the zine exclusively for a while than use it to drive hype for the next one.”
I feel like this hits the nail on the head—the happy medium we’d like to strike moving forward. Updates on this front coming soon.
Two :: I think more people should write letters in response to the things they consume. One of my favorite parts of opening magazines like The New Yorker or Sports Illustrated over the years is reading the Letters to the Editor.
As a reader first, writer second, it’s always fun to see other people enjoying the same things I’m enjoying. Additionally, the dialogue that follows is often quite constructive.
For writers, it’s an opportunity to welcome feedback (effusive and critical) while turning stories into an open conversation. For readers, it’s a chance to engage not only with the writer and editing staff, but also to organize their own thoughts on the subject matter.
You can therefore color me pleasantly surprised when one reader, Aaliyah, wrote a whole letter on Substack in response to my last blog (a review of “bunch of friends”).
I recommend checking out the piece—Aaliyah’s voice shines through, and I think she raises some really solid points via a “long, drawn out, unsolicited opinion,” as she puts it.
But I will spoil one quote that stuck out to me:
“Documenting our lives is the most beautiful f**king thing we can do because we have the capacity to acknowledge our existence in a way that no other creature can.
We take it for granted. We’ve made it synonymous with a career path.
We've made dance, drawing, crocheting, even reading books a skill to be monetized and not just one of those things that humans do. I want writing to be something that I just do.”
Thanks for the letter, Aaliyah. I really enjoyed reading it.
Three :: I think we should include a Letters to the Editor section in our future issues. Did you read our last print edition of Creator Mag?
If so, did anything resonate with you in particular—or were there any ideas or themes you’d like to weigh in on?
Feel free to send us a letter via Google Doc or PDF, and we might just feature it in our upcoming issue. You can reply with your letter attached below, or email it to powderbluemedia@gmail.com.
Four :: I think there’s something magical about revisiting the same places—years later. This weekend, my older brother visited me in Chicago for the first time since 2019, back when I was still in college.
He’d never been to Lincoln Park or walked along the Lakefront Trail, so we took the bus over and tallied nearly twenty thousand steps…while spontaneously catching a Cubs game at Wrigley Field.
My first place in the city was a ten-minute walk south of Wrigley. That apartment is actually where I started Creator Mag, writing stories late into the night as the Red Line thundered along directly behind my windows.
I haven’t really spent any time there since leaving Chicago in 2022. While I’m happy with where I’m at now, the nostalgia flowed in droves in retracing the steps of my twenty-two-year-old self. The streets I used to run on, the bodega I used to shop at, the comedy club I used to go to. They’re all still there, even as I’ve moved to both coasts (and back).
Wrigley, too. There’s something timeless about that place. The ivy splaying across the outfield wall. The scorekeepers climbing up and down inside the old scoreboard, updating it by hand. I’d go so far as to say there’s no consistently better sports experience than a Cubs game in the summer—regardless of how good the team is.
Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs did, in fact, win today.
Five :: I think you should pop out to the city for our next Block Party. With Summertime Chi in full swing, we’re going all out for the weekend of July 19.
As you may remember from last season, all you have to do to attend the Block Party is purchase a magazine. In March, we had over seventy artists, filmmakers, and peers from across the creative world gather together for a night of conversation and celebration.
But get this: We’re planning events and activities Friday through Sunday this time around. Keep up with this space for updates over the next several weeks—we can’t wait to host you again soon enough!
Thanks for reading! Shoot us a reply, comment, or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—we respond to them all.