So, we celebrated the first day of spring here in the US this week, and you know what that means -- that soon it'll be time to start bicycling again, something I do quite a lot in Chicago during the warm weather, both for personal reasons (I quit smoking last year) and professional (I create public Google mashup maps of my bike routes as a hobby). And that means, then, that CCLaP is ready to switch back to its warm-weather publishing schedule this coming Monday as well; but in reality, all that really means is only one review published per day here, instead of two per day like I do during the winter. I have, however, decided to see if I can maybe push myself to a full seven days a week of new entries here this spring, so I'll be starting that next week too, although I'll warn you that I may not publish any full-length reviews on the weekends, simply in consideration for those who only visit CCLaP during the work week.

Of course, two other things will finally be starting up this spring here at CCLaP as well -- not only the center's virtual photography gallery, but also its first series of outside published authors, in the form of short eBooks you'll be able to download here for free, then either print at home or read on your mobile device. And in that regard, I am certainly on the heavy lookout these days for both photographers who have an entire exhibit's worth of work put together (or 20 to 30 themed photos), as well as authors who have a manuscript finished that is somewhere between the size of a long story and long novella (or 10,000 to 40,000 words). Unfortunately there is no pay guaranteed with either of these situations, and you should realize in advance that I set the bar pretty high as far as what I'll accept (the only choice one has, I think, when one is publishing free work, otherwise no one will take any of it seriously); that said, both series will be accepting donations from any readers who want to send one (and photographers will also have print-on-demand merchandise on sale), and of course it is also a good chance to have your work seen and admired by what is currently 12,000 unique monthly visitors (and growing each day).

Anyway, if you have something to submit, please feel free to simply contact me directly at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com; I accept just about any format out there, although always appreciate smaller JPGs at first from photographers (when I'm just looking them over for the first time, that is), and text from authors that I can actually edit (so in other words, files such as .txt, .doc, .odt, etc). I look forward to hearing from you.