The popular image of the starving writer, fingers spattered
with ink, eyes red-rimmed and hollow, hunched over a battered
wooden desk in a candle-lit garret struggling to complete his (it
could be her, but I'm talking about the popular image here)
masterpiece may still hold some allure for a few people,
but for most that candle-lit garret has been replaced by a dank,
dark basement, crammed with computer gear. It's a dim, musty
place lit by flickering fluorescents and the radiant glow of a
cathode ray tube. A place where anti-social nerds energized by
junk food and Jolt cola create digital magic on their PCs.
It's sort of like the place where we put Circuit Traces
together. Except we drink coffee and do our computer stuff
with a Mac.
So what's the point, you wonder?
The point is that Circuit Traces, like most online
publications, is kept going by the hard work and unpaid
dedication of its creators and contributors. Making money
on the Web has not proven as easy as some people initially
thought. Just about everyone is losing money -- even the "big"
publications like Hotwired, Salon, and Slate.
All of which is just a roundabout way of saying that making a
living still has to take priority and that's why we haven't put up
a new issue in six months.
But here it is at last. And we're sure you'll find that it was
worth the wait. We think it's the best Circuit Traces yet. No
mish-mash of amateur and semi-professional writing, the
Spring 1997 issue is 100% professional from beginning
to end. Minnesota Book Award nominee, Peter Damian Bellis
has contributed "Blue Henry", a morbid, powerfully written
look at death and the imagination. Ron Torrence takes us on a
dark, surreal tour of an amusement park in "Arcade". And
M.J. Murphy puts a whole new twist on virtual reality in "I Ate
We've also put a lot of effort into improving the interface and
layout. Unfortunately, you may find that some pages will load very
slowly. This is mostly due to the use of tables which, while
offering considerable layout flexibility, can hamper fast page
loading since all the data inside the table has to be read before your
browser will display it. We'll be looking for ways to speed things
up, but meanwhile please bear with us.
Naturally, we want the next issue to be just as good, if not
better, than this one. And to do that we need your help. We're
looking for stories -- well-written stories that walk that
imperceptible line between today and tomorrow, stories that evoke
the revolutionary spirit of our times and reflect the madness of the
closing years of this most millennial of millenniums. Beyond
that, we need non-fiction. Articles that go beyond the
self-congratulatory hype of today's media and uncover the
darker side of "The Information Revolution".
So send us your stuff. Thrill us. Amaze us. Shock us.
Wake us up.
It gets lonely here in the basement.
The Editor
Send your submissions to submit@ctraces.com
