We’re currently taking submissions for Nimrod Volume 2 Issue 1, and this means we’re also looking for some stunning cover art to go with the stellar pieces we’ll be publishing.

I don’t have exact specs yet, but I can say that Nimrod Review printed as a 8.5″h x 5.5″w book, with about .25″ margins on all sides of the cover. The printable area is going to be about 8″hx5″w.

Content: I’m looking for something is a giant robot, which may be portrayed in any situation, but I like the idea of it being at least perceived as terrorizing a town… whether or not that is a misconception is up to you, the artist.

Please check out previous issues of Nimrod for the general look. Typically the Nimrod logo is toward the top taking up considerable real estate, and there is a band toward the bottom with the title, below which there is a list of contributors. Taking these elements into account when doing your design could prevent the disaster of having a crucial element be covered.

I can’t offer any kind of payment for the cover art, just know that it will be gracing the cover of a limited publication, and of course you retain all rights to the original art.

Feel free to submit concepts at http://thenwg.com/submissions or email robb@thenwg.com with any questions or to pitch an idea.

Get creating!

We at The Nimrod Review are gearing up for the next issue, so I want to officially put out a call for submissions.

We’re targeting a release date of late March to early April, so get all your submissions in by the middle of March. Let’s say the 20th or so.

I’m taking submissions in all shapes and forms. In the past Nimrod has published short stories and poetry, but I’m excited about the idea of seeing more poetry, essays, and drawings/photography. Bear in mind if submitting anything visual that the Nimrod Review is published in black & white.

That being said, there are a few Science Fiction based stories already in consideration for publication and one parody ad (also sci-fi themed) which I’m quite excited about. I’m encouraging creativity and innovation. Show me some shit I’ve never seen before.

March 20th will be a soft deadline, but I’ll take things up until I’ve got a good layout set and am ready to print. Include with your submission a short (1 paragraph) biography about yourself and your creative accomplishments.

Make your submissions at:
http://thenwg.com/submissions

Any questions or comments can be addressed to:
http://thenwg.com/contact

Thank you, and I’m looking forward to seeing all of your incredible submissions.

WHAT’S NEW?

If you’ve been to the site in the past, you might notice a couple exciting new features that we’ve added to the site: The Contact and Submissions tabs at the top of the site.

Contact: It’s exactly what it sounds like. Click the tab, and you get directed to a form where you give us some info about you, and you have a box to tell us exactly how awesome you think we are, in as many words as you could possibly need. No limits here baby!

Submissions: That’s right! No messy emails to the wrong addresses here. If you want to submit a story to The Nimrod Review, just click the Submissions tab and you will again be magically whisked to a form. You can either copy and paste your story into a box, or upload a file. How user-friendly is that?

COMING SOON!

PayPal: The NWG is a labor of love, and as with most labors of love, they don’t bring home the bacon. Actually, I’d estimate that I’m out a couple hundred bucks per issue. To keep me in Oreos, I am adding a PayPal link for anyone who wants to see Nimrod continue to grow and provide excellent content for its reasonable cost: Free.

Call Me: I’m toying with the idea of adding a Google Voice widget so people can call me from the site with the click of a button. Thoughts?

That’s it! Exciting changes and improvements here at NWG. Be on the lookout for a call for submissions for 2010’s first issue of Nimrod: Vol 2 Num 1!!!!!!

*sigh*.

Nimrod #2 was kind of a big deal for me. It’s not that I had to put a lot of work into it, or even print it for that matter. The big deal was what it means for me personally.

Printing the first issue of a zine is a big undertaking. You may not know what you’re doing, and no matter what, you have no way of knowing the direction that it is destined to go in. It could fall on its face. What you intend for it to become and what it inevitably does become could be wildly different. It’s a job you give yourself for no other reason than because you want to see it done. You put money into it. You put energy into it. You perfect it after many many failures until you think you’ve got something worth printing.

Then… you’ve got to get people to read it.

Printing the second issue of a zine… well.

After the first issue you can wash your hands of it, walk away knowing that it was something you tried and, for better or worse, you’re done with it. Committing to a second issue changes the game. Not only have you got to perpetuate something that you’ve started, you’ve also got to improve on it… bring more people in… get more people interested. You’ve gone from making a fun book to creating an entity. This is a commitment.

Not taking any of that into consideration at all, I decided to announce a new issue of Nimrod for October 2009. I already had a few short stories written, so for me it was all soliciting for content and designing the bastard. I faced a few challenges this time around, one of them being that I was working with writers in several countries, all with their own lives going on on their own schedules. Another challenge is that I had just moved to Vermont, and was committed to cranking out issues of Dear Deer Wolf Bear Shark for Brayton Cameron, on top of my own creative endeavors. All while trying to make a good impression at my new job.

It was telling that in my initial cover design for #2, I had already placed the date as “November 2009″.

Finally I got all of the stories together, slapped some bios in there, and wrote a little opener. some design tweaks, edits, and other messy nonsense later, and I was sending the pdf to Livius to print. You see, he was able to work out a seductively good price to get me printed. One I couldn’t pass up. And with the holidays approaching fast, I wouldn’t have to spend time in the office with Captain Printy printing it myself.

And thus, Nimrod #2 was born. Flash forward to today. I’ve distributed almost 70 of the original print run of 100 to places like: Vermont, Chicago, Seattle, Belgium, Norway, and have orders placed for England in the near future. Additionally, they will be available at Dear Deer Wolf Bear Shark’s “An Evening With Dear Deer Wolf Bear Shark” event in DeKalb IL on Saturday Feb. 13th.

If you’re hungry for some indie literature, email me at robb@thenwg.com or click the CONTACT tab at the top of this website. The issues are free – that’s right, I’m paying for postage. All I ask in return is to spread the word about this incredible literary experience.

The time is officially here.

I’ve mumbled about the idea of an issue 2 for a while now, and I just want to officially announce it.

Issue 2 is in the works. I’ve taken some of the stories that the writing group posted, but I’d still love to get as many more as I can. I want to make issue #2 a big issue.

While there is not going to be an official theme to the issue, I’ve got a lot of really good stories that are more on the dark side, so I’d like to see as much darkly themed work as possible. However, I obviously will make my choices based on the merit of the submission.

Deadline for submission will be Sunday, September 20th, I plan to have the book layout done and the books printed by 10/08, and have copies distributed for Halloween.

Distribution where? I’ve been in talks with a local bookstore here to stock it either for free or on consignment. Issue 1 is about to be stocked as a free publication in a store in Melbourne Australia, and I’m always open to hearing from anyone else about where they might be able to get it stocked.

Please respond with questions or submissions at: nimrodwritersgroup@gmail.com.

I’ll be sending out reminders via email, and some of you have already been in communication with me.

I’m looking forward to seeing what gets submitted, and feel free to share this call for submission with everyone you know who would be interested.

Thank you, my wonderful writers!

Robb Olson

The Forums are up!

go to http://www.forum.thenwg.com to register an account and start forum-ing!

Talk about what you’re writing, what you’re reading, what you’re stuck on, characters you’re developing, share stories – pictures – poems – paintings – websites – zines – or anything you’ve created or are creating for everyone to enjoy.

First printing complete!

A limited number of Issue 1 Nimrod Review are available. Anyone who is interested should email nimrodwritersgroup@gmail.com. Contributors will get their copies as soon as I can get them out.

Nano Month continues!

June is Nano month, and so far, so good! I’m hoping to get some good nanos together for future publication. Let’s keep it up everyone, it’s really starting to take shape.

Due to the good reviews all the writers gave for the week-long nanofiction challenge a while back, I’ve decided to dedicate a whole month to more Nano fun.

So I am very excited to see what kinds of great stories will come out of it, and hope to be sharing a bunch of them in the near future.

Also: Be on the look out for a downloadable pdf of the first issue of Nimrod Review. The print version has experienced a few delays, but should be available in the near future.

The feature that I’m most excited about will be here soon.

NWG Forums!

We’re going to be adding a forums section to the website and moving the writing group off of Google Groups and onto our own dedicated site.

This is nice because we’ll have the full functionality of a forum, which allows us to have multiple sections, and then threads within those sections. It really opens up a world of possibilities.

I’ll be making more announcements in the near future, but for now, check back for the latest news, and posts from your fellow writers!

Coming very soon, I’ll be releasing the first issue in what I hope will be a regularly produced zine called the Nimrod Review.

The inspiration behind it was to give something back to all of the people who contributed to the Nimrod Writers Group that I started on a whim. Everyone got together and really got into the project. It was such fun and I wanted to give them something as a thanks.
It started out as a pet project. I was doing a very simple, very stripped down layout that was nice enough to hand out, but with almost no effort required. Eventually I sent the file to Mac to check it out, and before you know it, we’re doing design sessions, and he’s sending me logos and designs and we’re using all these great fonts.

Eventually we landed on the design you see above, and a website. I am head over heels in love with the whole project, and hope to share it and grow it in the upcoming months.

Many thanks to Shayne who edited the copy for me, Mac who designed the shit out of the book and single-handedly created the website, and Livius for all his help on the production end of the zine. And of course, all of you for writing and/or reading my modest publication.