We’ll be taking time out to read through the large number we’ve received. Thank you to everyone who has submitted, and we’ll be in touch soon.

For those of you who have not yet managed to write that fabulous story, get going!

Fear is the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind and according to H.P. Lovecraft “the oldest and stongest kind of fear is the unknown.” Fear also keeps us safe. That fear of spiders and snakes keeps us from getting bitten. But fear can keep us from living life to the fullest.

As writers we have our own special set of fears. First we are afraid to send out our writing so we polish until we get to the point we are changing things which have been changed several times. We aren’t making things better, we are just picking nits. Putting off the next step.

Jean – WOW! Blog

I read this and thought about the number of women I’ve asked to complete a story for Urban Chick who have not, as yet, submitted. I wondered if our fears are heightened by the fact that we’re women.

Cynthia Leitich Smith thinks that this has to do with early gender socialization. She explores the idea that perhaps we’re too keen to be people pleasing nice girls.

Problem is, the moment we start making decisions about where our story is headed, we’re already alienating some potential readers. Perhaps even those in our all-important immediate circle. We’re failing to please everyone.

Maybe we try anyway, and the result is a bland mush of a story. It might even sell well, but will it ever really sing?

Cynsations blog

But there are other factors at play here too, one of which is our fear of sexual discrimination.

Recently, an unpleasant internet troll posted about a local female blogger’s site. Her appearance was attacked, as was her personal life. If it was a man being criticised, would he have been judged using the same criteria? Is this an example of ongoing worldwide gender discrimination? Such sexist attacks do appear to be an emerging online trend.

The Washington Post

The reasons behind these attacks don’t seem important – what is important is that this harrassment is bullying, intimidating and even violent, clearly with the aim of belittling and silencing these women.

Local blogger Champagne Heathen expands on a possible outcome:

We might be intimidated to the point of leaving this medium altogether. Or we perhaps could start “women-only blogging networks”. But then we are forced to cut out an element we find very necessary and often lovely – the many individual voices of men. Women might soon feel a need to create a “sexually-biased” space because all of us, of both genders, have allowed the bullying by a type of man who is unable to maturely handle the free reign offered by the lawless internet.

This kind of muzzling is not new or isolated to an online environment.

In 1978, the late Tillie Olsen published Silences, a blistering documentation of the exclusion and silencing of women writers throughout history. She talked about the many things that have kept women from writing — their roles as wives and mothers, the need for money, lack of workspace, being characterized as mentally unstable and many other reasons.

Olsen painstakingly catalogued the results. In a chapter entitled simply “One Out of Twelve”, she detailed the woefully small percentages of women in every measure of literature and writing. The discrimination that Olsen found more than 30 years ago is still alive and well today with women being grossly underrepresented in Op Ed pages, books published and every other measure.

Unminds Must Fear blog

Urban Chick is there to give women voices, to assist in growing local female writing talent and to break this pattern. I believe it’s possible. Internet trolls aside, blogging has still enabled local women to speak less conventionally and more openly about their experiences. It is these voices that Urban Chick seeks to portray in a printed format. We have a right to discuss our sex lives, our relationships, our difficulties with work and the world, without fear that we’ll be censored into oblivion.

As women, we should continue writing about our lives candidly in order for us to break the shackles of silence and to become truly liberated.

Submissions are still rolling in, but we’d like as many as possible. Pick up your pen, write these stories and let the world know that we won’t tolerate mysogyny any longer. You don’t have to be a nice girl, you don’t have to worry about chasing away readers – use your voice as you’ve never used it before!

The blog roll has been updated with as many local South African female bloggers as we could locate (in a limited time frame). If you’re a female blogger and know of any others you feel we should include, please e-mail us.

Happy reading!

Submissions have picked up from a trickle into a bit of a stream now, so keep them coming! We are busy reading and collecting all the time.

Our apologies if you don’t get an immediate response to your submission, we promise that we will respond to ALL submissions. But mostly , feel free to submit questions and comments here should anything be on your mind! This Blog space is here for you, the writers, and you the readers, so feel free to exchange any ideas or problems.

But above all else, keep on writing!

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.

A short story can be a character sketch with a point; it can be a narrative of a great night out with a twist. It can be a highly evocative and descriptive scene which pulls emotional strings. But all these things have one aspect in common: they are short, they must focus on a single point and they must deliver fulfilment.

So, how do you start?

Well, decide what it is that you want to say. Do you want to relate a tale that reveals a moral? Confide a personal secret? Describe a cherished memory? Once you know what your story will be about, you need to decide how you are going to tell it.

Will you tell it directly in your own voice? Using the first person, I, me etc?
Or will you choose to narrate it from an exterior point of view… he she etc. once you know this, make sure you stick to the voice you have chosen to avoid confusion. Some authors switch from one voice to another, but you might not want to try that out unless you’ve got some experience with the form.

Then you need to decide who is in the story. Is it just one person, two, a group? And what are their names? Make sure you have clear idea of each character and how they fit into your narrative.

It’s also a good idea to think about your ending before you start. This is a short piece of fiction so it shouldn’t be hard. Sometimes an ending will suggest itself while writing, and sometimes that will be better than the one you originally planned. Go with it, but don’t rely on an ending suggesting itself, plan one.

Don’t worry if you can’t sit down and write this piece on one sitting. Get as far as you feel you can before losing momentum. Then save your file, put down your pen and go away. Come back the next day and re-read and pick up the threads. Maybe during the day make some notes. But don’t stress. The story will tell itself if you let it. Just keep it top of mind for a couple of days and you’ll be amazed at what connections you’ll make.

Do not edit your material as you go. Just let it come out; don’t stop to correct typos or spelling. Even if you know you have constructed a sentence badly, leave it. Let your train of thought flow uninterrupted. You can edit later, and you will do a better job when you are focussed on it. When you are writing, do nothing but put down new words and ideas.

These are just some pointers and none of them are golden rules. The trick here is to be honest and let it flow, tell your story without pre-judgment or assumption, then send it to us!

Keep an eye on the site though, cos there will be more news and advice coming!

David Chislett

1. Radio 2000 interview

I’ll be on Radio 2000 at 13:10 on Thursday 1 March to talk about Urban Chick. Keep an ear out if you’re curious about the original motivation for the project, and where we plan on taking it.

2. Viral marketing

The word is spreading. Thanks to rage.co.za for putting up the press release on their very funky site. Thanks also to all linked bloggers for either advertising it on their sites, or for linking back here. We figured that the best way to start this process was to use the very network that inspired it. So far it’s working, which is testimony to the strength of our online communities.

3. Submissions

Submissions are already trickling in. Get busy with your pens / laptops / desktops. Get writing. Add your voice to this book!

4. Do I have to be South African?

A question was posted in the comments section of The Chiz, asking if expats could send in entries. Urban Chick is about a contemporary South African context, and therefore it’s important than anyone considering submitting a story should have an immediate, visceral understanding of this context. For this reason, if you’ve been living out of South Africa for over a year, we will not consider your entry.

5. Do I need to be an experienced writer?

Yes, and no. We’re not just looking for stories from published authors. We’re looking stories from all women who have great stories to tell. What we publish will be based on the merit of the story, rather than on experience.

If you have any questions, ideas or comments, please feel free to leave your footprint in the comments section. This is not only about the book, it’s also about creating a community where we can share our stories and thoughts.

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