UR Out. Seriously, You Are.

So you may have noticed that little pic/caption on the side of my blog about how I now write for UR Chicago, a local, monthly entertainment and culture magazine. I had done some freelance work for them in the past, interviewing Margaret Cho and Paddy Boom, among other articles. But now I am a full-fledged member of their writing staff. Hooray for jobs/side projects that actually relate to my college major whether directly or indirectly!

Let's back up. This past March, UR found new owners in the form of En Prise Entertainment, an event promotion and artist management company, and with them came a new editor-in-chief. Since then, in my humble opinion, UR has really popped. The covers alone are unique and fantastic. I mean, look at this cover for the current issue about food. Who does magazine covers like that? I don't see magazines looking like that anywhere else in the city...or, country even?

Plus, their food and wine coverage is always informative, they interview the most interesting personalities whether local or national, and they cover everything from sex toys to local do-gooders to Chicago's crazy nightlife. Most impressively, their awesomely expansive music section showcases the latest and greatest and have introduced me to some of my favorite new bands (hi, The Attorneys!). They even revamped the website and added a kickass podcast where you can listen to all the music that's featured in each issue. And just when you thought they might have been too cool for school, they even add a Dogs & Babies section. Hey, babies can be trendy, right? Word.

But just to completely round out the Chicago experience, they have also added an LGBT section. To my surprise and delight, they asked me to create the content every month. Wait, how did they know I was even gay to begin with? Oh, yeah. And, yeah. And...yeah. So anyway, each month is a new article and event listings written by yours truly.

Anyway, the section is called UR Out (I love the accusatory/informative statement behind the name; see title of this post) and it debuts in this month's issue. You know, Chicago's LGBT population (I prefer that to "community") may have the Windy City Times and a section in Time Out Chicago, among other publications, but with a city this big there's always room for more coverage, right? I just hope I do my fellow 'mos proud through fun, informative articles. I'm also expecting to learn a lot in the process, about Chicago's LGBT scene, about writing on deadlines and about how the local/national LGBT stories evolve over time, especially in these heightened, we've-come-so-far-but-have-so-far-to-go times.

P.S. If you have something going on you'd like to see listed in our event listings, or know about something I should check out, please email the details to urout@urchicago.com.

Also check out: UR Here.
And: U {Heart} Pierogis.