Counter Arts Welcomes Your Whacky Thoughts
By: Carlos Garbiras
Tags: Home, Publication, Writing, Submission, Art

Counter Arts Welcomes Your Whacky Thoughts

I wonder what my stance would be on ‘writing what the algorithm wants’ if my livelihood depended on my partner payments.

I often tell my wife that no job is too small when you need to put food on the table and, as an immigrant, I have worked some weird jobs.

I once convinced my neighbor to let me use his van to deliver phone books. We loaded so many books on it that we almost broke it.

The rules of engagement were clear, if you didn't deliver all books within the timeline, you didn’t get paid. This is a business practice the people behind the gig know can only fly with undocumented immigrants. I wasn’t one but it still felt wrong to denounce it when I knew there were people depending on this money.

We barely got enough money to pay for my neighbor’s gas and he was gracious enough not to charge me for the wear and tear my misadventure caused to his car. It probably stole two years from its expected lifespan.

I don’t know if I would, in a time of need, kneel for the algorithm. Maybe I would. But what happened to ‘writing for writing’s sake’. Writing to explore and discover the outside world as well as the richness of our inner worlds.

As time goes by, readers will find their way to some of the pieces I loved writing but went unnoticed when they first came out. I still remember the people that read the articles nobody else read. Like how Trisha Traughber read my long nostalgic essay on old school cameras and how immigrants become minimalist out of force. Or how William J Spirdione read my funny rant on how wearing a mask requires very little from people and what it is like to travel for work during the pandemic. Or how C Balcombe thoughts my misfortunes around buying underwear were funny.

I am eternally grateful to them for putting eyes on thoughts that would’ve otherwise lived on a notebook somewhere in my drawers.

Similarly, I am eternally grateful for the readers and community I have found in this platform. Maybe it is my distrustful nature, or maybe something more malicious as self-sabotage, but I don’t really need to write to please the algorithm. I’m happier writing to find people I can relate to even if it means writing for cents and it seems like a lot of writers in our community feel the same way.

We are now a band of over 1,300 misfits supporting each other in this creative and introspective journey.

Four of those writers you might be familiar with.

Squeeze the Avocado, Will Hull, yesnodunno, and Christopher Robin are some of the most playful and supportive writers I have seen out there on this platform. After a few months working with Counter Arts, we are so grateful of the incredible and warm welcome we’ve received from our Medium community.

Our tagline is A Home For Your Two Cents. But the support you will get here as a writer and the content you will get as a reader will make it feel like a lot more.

On a personal note, I am beyond grateful to stand next to this group of talented and compassionate writers and editors. I always look forward to the 1,000 unread messages in our chatroom discussing editorial questions with equal fervor as the weirdness that meanders through our heads — mostly Chris’ head.

This publication is a homage to several things. We want to celebrate and give a home to those articles that might not be showered with money by the algorithm. We want to take your tired, your overlooked, your articles that might only make two cents but the ones that you know the world needs to read.

We will shower your words with love and attention from the editors at this humble publication.

You are also welcome to check out and publish under our other two sister publications: Songstories and Rainbow Salad.

Songstories welcomes all your content related to music therapy and the stories behind the music we listen to. Include a video of the specific song you are referring to. The songs we listen to change us. They shape how we feel and what we do. Let’s share stories of how songs shape our world. Let’s share the experience.

Rainbow Salad welcomes all your fiction work poetry, flash, and short stories. This is a place for misfit unicorns to publish their poetry and fiction. In the same vein as Counter Arts, it welcomes and encourages countercultural work especially work displaying high-brow-and-low-brow interactions, unreliable narrators, and all work highlighting minorities of all kind.

And if you are a writer in any of the three pubs (Counter Arts, Rainbow Salad, and Songstories) you are welcome to submit and publish to any of them.

Who Can Submit?

Whether you are an amateur or a professional, you are welcome to this publication.

We will not interfere with your work but, every now and then, we will give you respectful feedback. You can take it or leave it because we recognize that you are the final arbiter of your art.

Articles will not need original photographic work but we do like to see a featured image. Just make sure to attribute it properly.

Since the creation of the publication we have updated our guidelines and what was previously known as DarkRoom is now part of our Art tab.

Your nonfiction work with original photography is welcome here. If your work is fiction, you can request to be added as a writer in our sister pub Rainbow Salad, and submit it there.

Categories

Art

Essays and commentary on art. Thoughts, ideas, and notes on the art we consume whether is painting, literature, photography, graffiti and everything else.

Culture

Personal commentary on cultural topics encompassing topics such as love, lifestyle, family, parenting, relationships, and others.

Equality

Opinion articles discussing, supporting, and advocating for equality. Commentary on societal issues like race, class, gender, sexual orientation and others.

Growth & Hacks

Descriptive and informative articles on topics such as personal finance, psychology, communication, data, history, and marketing.

Humour

Whether you write humor or humour, this tab is for works funny, satirical, witty and/or humorous. Because laughter is the best medicine.

Tech & Design

Thoughts, ideas, and notes on videogames, design, technology, user interface, cryptocurrency, AI, blockchain, and anything else that tickles you fancy that could be considered tech or design.

Tags

Along with your work feeding into our homepage based on when it was published, we also like to display it under the appropriate tab.

Please, include which time you think most adequately represents your piece. If we do see a tag, we will add one based on where we believe it should live.

Art: art

Culture: culture

Equality: equality

Growth & Hacks: personal growth

Humour: humor

Tech & Design: design

How do I get in touch with Counter Arts?

If you want to be added as a writer, please leave a message in the comment section below. Please include your Medium username to help make life easier for us in adding you to our community.

Send submissions through the platform once you are added as a writer.

For the time being, we will promote selected posts on social media through our personal accounts until we have a better understanding of what our marketing strategy will be. We are interested in promoting your work and getting as many eyeballs on it as possible. But we are still new to the publishing game. So thank you for your patience.

In the meantime, if you need to get a hold of us while we set up a publication inbox, you can email us at:

Will — hullwb@gmail.com

Avo — jesnunz@gmail.com

YesNoDunno — xjseah@hotmail.com

Christopher Robin — crsarmy7@gmail.com

Carlos — garbiras@gmail.com

What Will You Not Publish?

We won’t publish anything that is in any way misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, violent, or demeaning.

Please put the full content in your submission. We will not publish articles where the copyright is in doubt.

Who Owns My Work?

You own your work. In fact, by submitting to Counter Arts, you are representing that you own the rights to the material you have submitted and have the right to publish it at Counter Arts. You are giving Counter Arts license to publish your work for as long as you and Counter Arts mutually agree. You are solely and exclusively responsible for the content of your pieces.

Use at least one feature image on your piece and place it right after your title block. Ensure the image quality is preserved and not watermarked. Make sure to credit the source properly and if it is an original photo include a caption explaining so.

Sometimes we might change a tag to help your article with curation and with the categorization under the publication’s columns.