The Urban Chick publishing project is well under way. Submissions have been coming in, questions are being asked from the public and the blog is growing. In short, Urban Chick is alive and well online!

Urban Chick is a publishing project that is utilizing the viral, community orientated nature of the online blogging community to talk to young urban women about their experiences of modern life. The ultimate objective is to collect enough top quality stories of the lives of these young women and publish a book, to be distributed via all the normal channels and online, so that women all over South Africa can see that they are not alone, and that there is more than one way to live your life as a free-thinking, independent adult female living in 21st century South Africa.

The brain child of Kathy Jenks, a freelance Television director and editor, Urban Chick is not a chic lit collection or a feminist diatribe. “What we are seeking to portray is how women today are coping with the lives they lead,” explains Jenks, “It is not an effort to lecture or pass judgement, but rather to reflect the real experiences of young women all over this country as they come to grips with the choices available to modern women.”

Jenks, in partnership with David Chislett, the editor of the Urban series of short stories, published by New Africa Books, are looking to reach out to women in their 20’s and 30’s who are live in cities around South Africa, conducting full time professional lives while juggling their families, relationships, friends and expectations all at the same time. The quest is for gritty tales, not political diatribes or lectures on morality, but slices of the very real lives that women lead. The overall tone of the stories should not be too serious, but should rather reflect young women’s abilities to laugh even as they struggle. You don’t have to be an experienced writer, or have ever even written before. Or you can be a seasoned pro, it’s the stories that count.

Send your stories to: urbanchick01@gmail.com
PO box: 292048 Melville 2109

Stories must be no longer than 3000 words and no shorter than 1500, typed and double spaced in order to be considered
Remember to include all of your contact details with your submission.
Submission close end of May 2007.