Wading through submissions.

Wading through submissions.

Finally found some time to sort through most of the Chicagoist applications for a new music writer or two last night. I was slightly embarrassed to come across GalPal's letter -- she's already been snatched up by Gapers Block's Transmission music site* -- so it's pretty obvious I'm a bit behind on responding to this batch.

I'm pleased with a lot of the applicants though, so while it means that fewer of the auditioners I try out will actually get in, it means that we'll hopefully be teaming up with some pretty top-notch talent. Also, with SuperBird in grad school, Marcus moved into the Editor-in-Chief position, and Ali tackling more general contributor stuff, I've been carrying the brunt of the musical coverage on the site** ... and it'll be nice to have couple other folks regularly posting on that sort of thing.

Yay!

*Funny story: GalPal applied to write for Chicagoist months before we ever met and I had actually contacted her about auditioning, but she didn't follow through and she admits she "just sort of disappeared on the whole thing." Part of her explanation was that I wasn't pushing her enough to turn in audition posts and my response was that was a specific tactic I use with new contributors. I'm more than happy to offer guidance but, due to the nature of the site, if you're not a self-starter I can't have someone on staff that needs to be prodded in order to provide content. She thought that was sneaky of me but I think it's a valid sorting mechanism. Of course now that I'm bringing on new writers I wish I'd seen her latest application before Transmission snagged her talent!

**Speaking of which, check out my review of Kanye West's latest album.