CCM Updates

Happy new year everyone! It’s good to talk to you again. A few staff members, including myself, spent the last few months relocating, which meant pausing some CCM activity. But we’re back and ready for our next issue cycle. As always, we’ve rolled out a few new changes, and have plenty cooking in the background. For now, let’s cover the new:

Issue 08 theme voting

• If you haven’t heard already, you can vote for Issue 08’s theme! There was a poll sent out in the newsletter, but if you didn’t vote there, you can vote in the poll on our landing page, or on (https://x.com/cicadacreatemag) or Instagram.
• After an internal vote, we narrowed down our options to Dial-up Dreams, a theme about Y2K and internet aesthetics, nostalgia, and reflecting on the internet’s evolution, and [Echo]location, a theme about how we can map communication in physical space.

Rolling Reviews

• Issue 08 will be the first issue in which we do rolling reviews.
• In the past, we would wait until after the submissions closed to conduct review in one long marathon, but this led to sluggish response times. This was a holdover from how I learned to do review back in my high school literary magazine, which was all physical and had no digital component. Naturally, it is probably well past time to update this practice.
• We recognize that many submitters are eager to hear back as soon as possible because many publications do not allow simultaneous submissions, and we want to be as responsive to this concern as possible.
• We will now conduct review twice a month (every other week) as long as submissions are open. This means you should hear back within 2-3 weeks at the most after submitting your work.

Staff Restructuring

• Our documentation has been updated to reflect alterations in our staff structuring.
• In the past, we had a few dual roles on the Editorial Board (Creative Directors, Managing Editors) that would end up de facto separating into specializations. We decided it would make more sense to be specific with what each role does so there is no ambiguity. Rather than having two Creative Directors, one of whom prefers illustration and the other prefers graphic design, we now have an Art Editor and a Graphic Designer.
• Similarly, Creative Team members were ambiguous in their function and responsibilities, so we divided the team into three dedicated positions of Freelancers, Reviewers, and Editorial Assistants.
• Some positions were also renamed for clarity (ie Communications Director becoming the Social Media Manager).

Staff Applications open

• This is also a notice that staff applications are open. You can apply with this form.
• We’ve tweaked the requirements to join staff. We now require all positions to submit a resume and 2 creative samples.
• For Issue 08, we’re primarily searching for Freelancers, Reviewers, and Editorial Assistants. We’re also looking for a Newsletter Editor, a Graphic Designer, and an Associate Editor.
• Staff applications are no longer open year-round. They will close in 3 weeks on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024.

Comment Boxes

• Blog posts now have a comment box! If you have any feedback, feel free to share it with us. It supports anonymous commenting, but there is a filter system, so keep it classy.

Stay tuned for more updates and information! Thank you all for your patience and ongoing support.