four months later...I'll be putting up the flyers again and distributing them at the zinefest in Geelong on Saturday (I hope), and with luck we could get this zine out, oh, sometime this year.

an important change has been made: we can take illustrations. you need to email me at thirtypeopleATgmail.com and I'll send you the PO box. photocopies are best unless you're happy never to get your precious originals back.

of course we need a cover. that will just be the best illustration received. the judge is me.

wow, the power goes to your head after a while.

a few other things: if you want a URL or your name on the bottom of your piece, please put it in the copy or on the illustration. after doing a few editions of my own zine, I've realised that compiling a hundred or so 32-page zines will be a big job, so anything that makes it easier will create a pathetic level of gratitude...

What's Thirty People You Haven't Heard of Yet?

It's a new Melbourne zine, in postcard-sized format, with shockingly low production values and no sense of its own importance.

Submissions are now open for the first issue, with a tentative publication date of May sometime. May this year. Probably.

These are some random rules for issue one:

Submissions must be under 100 words, or less if you're submitting a poem. basically, they need to fit on a quarter of an A4 page.

Issue one is all about People: we're thinking of Jorge Colombo's Dailies; thumbnail sketches of people who can only be themselves.

Your character can be real or fictional, written in the first, second or third person. We have no position on whether plot is necessary.

Issue #1 will be distributed by contributor pigeon: most of the contributors to the first edition will be from the School of Creative Arts at the University of Melbourne. 150 copies will be left at the school (contributors emailed with notification); every contributor takes 5 copies and gives them to friends/leaves them in cafes/hands them out on trams/hoards them against the day when a copy of issue #1 of Thirty people will be a valuable commodity.

For issue #1, editorial interference will be kept to a minimum. ie, we'll take anything unless we find it so boring or offensive that we refuse to spend our money photocopying it.

One piece per contributor, please: email in the BODY of the email - NO ATTACHMENTS, DO WE HAVE TO SHOUT? - and include your preferred name. This does not have to be your real name.

Publication will be in the magazine and/or on this website; all rights remain with you, the literary genius.

Now get writing. It's only 100 words.

email: thirtypeople@gmail.com

ps: why thirty people? because when you fold four pieces of paper four times, you get 32 pages; one is for the title, another for the credits. The other thirty pages are for you.