Be featured on Open Mic Friday!

Are you an artist? Do you know any artists? The Open Mic wants you! Contribute a guest post and share your work (or work-in-progress) with a friendly, thoughtful, supportive audience.

First off: If you’re not a regular Open Mic reader, browse the archive to get familiar with the format and see the range of past guest posts. We have had all kinds of things on the Open Mic in the past: flash fiction, poetry, paintings, sketchbook pages, funny essays, excerpts from graphic novels. All genres and media are welcome, including those we haven’t yet featured!

Second: If you like what you see, don’t be shy. If you call yourself an artist (or want to!), you know a big part of that is hustling your work out into the world. There is no less scary way to get your work in front of an audience than Open Mic Friday. You don’t even have to be finished with it: drafts, experiments, and works-in-progress are encouraged too, and if you need a deadline to work toward, we can schedule you for a date far in the future.

To get the process started, email satsumabug at gmail dot com and let me know (a) what kind of work you do, or what you have in mind for your guest post, (b) a date or date range that would work well for you, and (c) any questions you have about the process. I’ll respond within a few business days.

Third: Once we’ve got you into the schedule, the contribution process is very simple. You’ll email me your work, any introductory comments, a short bio, and a photo of you (optional but recommended). I’m also happy to link to your site, blog, Twitter, and so forth. When your post goes up, I’ll email you to let you know. Then you’ll sit back and watch the comments come in, all weekend!

Need more convincing? Read what others have said about the Open Mic: Art of Hustle, Barbara Jane Reyes, drepoetic. And here are three more reasons to participate:

1. The Open Mic puts your name out there in conjunction with your art. A lot of people come to my  blog via name searches for guest artists. In short, people are Googling you — what do you want them to find?
2. New networks, new audiences. Past guest artists have sold books after appearing on the Open Mic, found new readers for their blogs, and gotten written up on other blogs.
3. An outlet for all your creative disciplines. Most artists I know have more than one form of expression. A guest post gives you a platform for your other work — writers have posted their photos and sketchbooks, teachers have shared their writing projects.

Even if you’re not ready for a guest post, the Open Mic still needs your participation! Come on over on Fridays to read, view, and comment. When there’s no guest post, we do an open discussion on creativity-related themes, so join us for that.

Thank you, and hope to see you on the blog!