Story Bleed Magazine was created to highlight talent emerging from the online space. Writers, photographers, and artists have experimented with blogs and other social platforms for years now to hone their skills and share their stories with a global audience. What fascinated us the most, however, were the people that would never have considered themselves artists but were, in fact, creating magazine-quality art.

Brilliant pieces of writing, buried in archives on little-read blogs. Stunning images lost to the infinite layers of photo sharing mega-sites.

We created Story Bleed to dredge up those moving fragments and highlight them in a format that suggested, “Take these pieces seriously. They are that good. No, you may not know these writers, but we’d like to introduce you.”

One of the best parts? The creatives we feature often are shocked at our interest.

When we contact them for procurement of a piece or accept a submission that they hit send on with nearly closed eyes, it is frequently the first time they have been recognized as talented.

Even better than their joy at being appreciated? Those same artists just as frequently begin to take themselves and their work more seriously, moving forward as serious writers and creating a career they never would have attempted.

It takes being seen. Even just once.

Letter from the Editor.

As writers and artists, we often find ourselves tangled in a veil of observation, inadvertently separating ourselves from experiencing the moment we are living as we reframe it in our heads, toying with ways we will translate it. Over time, we may discover a semi-permanent fog settling in between us and our lives. It is a challenge for artists. Agreed.

We have a new challenge for you.

Go outside. Is it still humid and cloying? Are you finally catching and clinging to briefly brisk days? When was the last time you threw your head back, rolled your shoulders loosely behind you, and took a deep breath?

Do it today. And take some little people with you. And, yes, a camera. You are an artist, after all, and our challenge is for you to find the place between joyfully refreshing experience and storytelling.

Story Bleed Magazine is partnering with our sponsor GoGo squeeZ in celebration of World Wide Day of Play this Saturday, September 24. We invite you to join us for a blogging carnival sharing nostalgic stories of play and how you play with your children today (or better yet, this Saturday!). GoGo squeeZ is a squeezable applesauce on-the-go company devoted to making it easier for kids & families to be a little healthier and happier. In keeping with GoGo sqeeZ’s philosphy, we are going to keep our challenge uncomplicated and largely unstructured:

#GoGoDayOfPlay Challenge:

In celebration of World Wide Day of Play, GoGo squeeZ is asking our community to join the GoGo Gang by uploading a photo of your kids at play. When the GoGo Gang is 100,000 members strong, GoGo squeeZ will team up with Action for Healthy Kids to renovate a play space in an under-served community. We want you to help us make these these playground renovations a reality!

Story Bleed invites you to support this effort and join our carnival via one or more of the following:

Definitely:

• • join the GoGo Gang by Liking GoGo squeeZ on Facebook and upload a photo of your kids at play
  (this is key to meeting our playground goals!)

• • share a link to your nostalgic story of play and photo posted on your blog
  (be sure to link back to our #GoGoDayOfPlay writing challenge/ blog carnival!)
• • share a link to a photo posted on Instagram or your favorite photo app (TwitPic, yfrog, Mobypicture, etc) and shared on twitter with the hashtag #GoGoDayOfPlay
  (the actual link you share will be to the specific tweet)

I plan to take an Instagram photo, hashtag it with #GoGoDayOfPlay, and then write a quick blurb on my personal blog about our stories of play featuring my Instagram photo. And I’ll probably add both links to the carnival. Because that? That is the circular creative world we live in!

• • •

“Clink” by Kathleen from Sugar and Spice | @ksugarandspice | shared by ksugarandspice on Instagr.am

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Letter from the Editor.

Story Bleed Magazine is once again accepting submissions!

After a year of submissions on hold due to a backlog in the hundreds, we are proud to announce that we have reopened submissions and are ready to celebrate with you.

#storied

Join the Story Bleed Editors this Thursday for a one hour open twitter chat about the craft of writing.

What: Writing indulgence in the company of friends, writers, and editors
Where: Twitter #storied (click the hashtag and join in or simply follow along)
When: Thursday, March 24, 2011, at 9pm ET/ 8CT/ 6PT

Reopening submissions is worth celebrating. Not only does it breathe new life into our conversation, once again enlivening the push and pull of living art, but we are also broadening our embrace. Story Bleed Magazine now accepts original submissions both previously published and unpublished in the following areas:

• nonfiction (essays, memoirs)
• fiction (short pieces, please)
• poetry
• art
• photography

Submit your work to Story Bleed through our revamped submissions manager today.

Timeless. Published. Unpublished. Singular. Bold.

As ever, we are interested in pieces that are timeless. New for us, however, is the acceptance of original, previously unpublished pieces.