Testing the waters: Co-Blogger

Ok… So I want to find someone who would be the co-blogger here on Q-triad.

The perfect co-blogger/contributor would be a person who can offer a perspective slightly different from my own. Some of my thoughts on who may be, perhaps, a good fit for co-blogger/contributor:

• a straight ally
• an LGBT person of color
• an LGBT person not from the South or living in the South
• a person who identifies as a lesbian
• an LGBT or straight allied person who is older and not currently a part of the 18-24 year old, traditional college-aged crowd
• an LGBT person who identifies as more conservative or more liberal than me (I have dubbed myself a “North Carolina Democrat,” basically meaning I tend to lean moderate on a lot of issues, conservative (although with perspective) on some).

If you think you fit any of those descriptions above, awesome. If not, don’t worry about it; not a big deal.

For those who might be interested in co-blogging, please take a few minutes to look around the site and familiarize yourself with the types of things I blog about, the style of writing, my opinions, etc. I don’t expect figuring out my blogging and writing style and opinions will be too difficult for folks who are already regular readers, but here are some tips:

• I usually stick mainly to LGBT issues, as they relate to politics, civil rights, social and cultural atmosphere, youth (high school and college), religion, the South & LGBT issues and North Carolina, the Piedmont-Triad area & LGBT issues.
• I tend to write in a “news-y” style, at least in the beginning. I’ll start my posts off looking and reading more like a news article from a newspaper and then after all the facts are given, I’ll move into giving more of an opinion on what I think of the issue.
• Some big issues I cover: Discrimination & LGBT youth in high schools and college; Religious discrimination (i.e. coverage of Soulforce, the Equality Ride, actions against LGBT people by religious groups and associations); government-sanctioned discrimination (i.e. marriage equality issues, anti-gay marriage amendments, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”). I know those are large and hard-to-define categories, but if you’ll look around some, you’ll get the general idea.

I don’t expect at all that the co-blogger should have keep my same writing/blogging style or have exactly the same interests in the issues as I do, but I do expect that the blog would keep some uniformity, at least with keeping to covering LGBT issues.

So… If you think you’d make a good fit for the co-blogger/contributor position, let me know. Email me at matt@matthillnc.com with the following information:

• Your name (yes… I’ll want someone who isn’t afraid to be non-anonymous)
• An email address you’d want to be public (if you become the co-blogger)
• A picture (we’ll use it on the site, if you become the co-blogger)
• A brief bio (this is different from the point below, we’ll use this one-two sentence bio to put next to your pic in the sidebar)
• Your background (basically telling me who you are, how you identify (sexual orientation/gender-identity), your age, where you live, where you grew up, what kind of education you have or where you are at in your educational career, etc.
• What kind of issues are important to you and what kind of issues you think you’d blog or write about.
• How often you think you’d be able to blog (ideal, at least 1 per day, absolute minimum, 1 post every other day)
• Your phone number & AIM s/n (if you have one): I’ll want to chat with you and, hopefully, we’ll become good friends, too, and chat all the time.
• Any other comments, suggestions, concerns, questions.

Before I go, here are some other things to keep in mind:

• I try very hard not to use profane or obscene language. If and when profanity is used it is used mightly sparingly and many times you’ll see me censor my own words with symbols.
• I try to keep a civil tone on my blog. I don’t always succeed, I am human after all, but I do try.
• I blog and write as much as possible with facts and the overwhelming majority of my posts are made out with plenty of research and consultation with other websites, resources, news gathering, etc.
• I try my best to report things I see in the world around me as they are, when they are. I try to be as fair and as compassionate as possible when writing about issues.

Alright… I’m off. See ya’ll later.

Edit: Because I thought of this later… In case some people might be wondering or some people might need some incentive… Here are some possible perks/positives to being the co-blogger (taking into consideration what blogging has brought to me):

• Exposure: For you, for your writing, for your thoughts. Over the last 30 days, my blog got an average of 932 page hits and 554 unique visitors each day. The weekly average is about 4,000 page hits. The monthly average of page hits since May 2006 is 11,854 and the average unique visits in that same time period is 7,102. The total statistics stand at approximately 128,300 page hits and 78,430 unique visitors since July 2005. The numbers are growing daily.
• Connections to LGBT/straight ally activists/bloggers/writers/columnists around the country.
• Possible forays into guest column writing (which happened for me back in Feb. 2006 for In Newsweekly in Boston, MA).
• Possible exposure to the media/press for interviews on subjects and issues which you have addressed, or with which you are familiar.
• And for the idealists out there… Helping little by little to change the world. Just imagine what just one writing about gay youth could do to help a struggling parent cope with a gay child coming out or what one writing could do to help an elected official understand the plight of 2nd class gay citizenship in America. Words do count for something, you know.

Ok… I’m done… Maybe there are more positives/incentives, but that is all I can really think of right now. It is late.

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