Have you ever fancied yourself..as an artist or blogger?

Calling all Storytellers – are you a Writer, a Creative Artist , a filmmaker or Blogger, a changemaker, anyone with a story to tell, an idea to explore or an inquiry to unfold?  

WE NEED YOU!

Transition Network is launching an ambitious and innovative year-long program to hand over part of our monthly communications to the voices of the world to tell us your story, or share your ideas about the world around you – and the world your heart is longing for.

Our project aims to capture the ideas, enthusiasm, struggles, successes, shadows, hopes and dreams that exist around the world from both within and outside the Transition Movement. We are seeking voices from all walks of life, all geographies and all languages and we are keen to hear the emotional, practical and theoretical natures of your stories and journeys. We are particularly keen to hear from more marginalised communities whose voices are rarely heard within these sorts of forums. We want this Guest Artist / Editor program to unleash a rich and diverse tapestry of colour and flavour into our communications within the Transition movement and beyond.  

To date the Transition Network blog has been run by a variety of people, most notably Rob Hopkins who has written the Transition Culture Blog for nearly 10 years.  Rob is off on sabbatical to write a new book, so now is a great opportunity for us to open up this space to hear from a range of voices around the world that better reflects the diverse and international nature of the Transition movement. We are hoping you will excite, challenge and inspire us with your ideas, words, art, performance and music. We will be offering £1000 GBP for each Guest’s term (one month). If you don’t know enough about our blog, you can find us here to get a taste of what we already do.  

Blogs are often reactions to the world – news and events around us. Transition Network will be maintaining our usual news based blog, so we are keen for our guests editor/artists to explore your own theme or area of interest specifically. Examples of previous themes we have covered have included:

• Wellbeing and Burnout;
• How communities respond to development threats;
• Celebration;
• Renewal;  
• Community Energy

These may have been inspired by a hot topic being debated or a different lens through which to view our movement and other social change movements. You may want to explore an issue that you feel is common to many Transition initiatives or one that you feel has so far largely been ignored. We’re happy to have our expectations and assumptions challenged, but will be keen to pick themes that can yield a good variety of content over the course of the month, that may feel relevant across our international movement and have the potential to spark engagement from others.

Minimum expectations of each position will be:

The 6 single-month Guest Storytellers will need to provide one feature article (no more than 2000 words) / video (no more than 8 minutes) / art work (High Def image) that outlines the frame of their theme, and then they will need to provide at least 2 other short pieces (between 800 and 1000 words/ at least 3 minute video / at least 15 minute podcast / work of art) that builds on your conversation and at least 2 interviews with people exploring or illustrating the theme.  The total minimum commitment is for at least 5 pieces for the month.

The 2 six-month Guest storytellers will need to provide one framing piece (at least 1000 words)  to outline their area of interest and one interview each month for the period of 6 months with people who highlight or provide examples of their area of interest.  The interviews can be audio or video (at least 20 minutes long).  
**Note: these are minimum requirements for output and that we’d be very keen to hear other suggestions and for you to produce more or different content if you have the capacity and contacts and it fits with their theme. (e.g. you might want to produce a shorter piece every day or every week or a regular podcast or…).

Group Applications:

We are very open to groups or organisations applying as one voice and we would be very excited if a group of children wanted to apply for the role. The only requirement we have for groups is that we will need a clear single point of contact and to be satisfied that your collective voice will be coherent and if you are a company, that you do not try to post corporate content, but have a view and perspective to share that is about your wider community. If you do have a group of children that wish to apply, again, if we could have a teacher, parent or group coordinator that we can initially work with.

Language requirements:

We are keen to explore the possibility of receiving and publishing content in languages others than English which we will also have translated into English. Please understand though we do need your initial submission in English for ease of comparison and reading, as we do not have translation resources available for all the entries.