Thread: I’ve had 3 feature articles in @ChicagoMag this year, and have filed a 4th that will be out next month. For this novelist, it’s been a fun dip into journalism — and because the features editor is a fantastic human, I’ve had a wonderful experience there. 1/

At the same time, it's clear right now that both POC and women in other parts of the magazine are increasingly frustrated, silenced, and over-edited by entrenched white male management, and that there need to be major changes. 2/

My name was listed on the masthead this month as a Contributing Writer — which just means that I wrote a feature for them, not that I work there or draw a salary or have any sense of what’s going on beyond my own article. 3/

My name appearing there means people have been reaching out to me a) with information (very helpful!) and b) for comment (which is cool, but I have no direct experience with what’s going on, and do not actually work at Chicago Magazine). 4/

(There being a lot of difference between doing freelance work someplace and actually working there as an employee.) 5/

While I don’t know the people involved, it genuinely sounds like a situation that bandaids won’t fix, one in which top-down structural change is needed. I’d particularly love to amplify this thread: https://twitter.com/taylormooresays/status/1300587501741125635

I can’t speak to any of the specifics in it, but I wanted to be sure I knew what I was talking about before I posted, so I've reached out to understand the situation better and have heard these frustrations backed up by other writers. 7/

It would be disingenuous posturing for me to say that I’ll refuse to work with them till changes are made, because these 4 completed articles are all I had bandwidth for and I’m going to spend the next year working on nothing but my novel. 8/

This magazine is an important enough institution to care about fixing. Chicago journalism and arts and event coverage matters so much, and it matters that those areas are covered FAIRLY, with an eye on all of Chicago. 9/

That can only happen when the masthead (both managerial and editorial) reflects the diversity of our city. 10/

There's opportunity here for reinvention, and for the fair, transparent pay and supportive ethos I've experienced in the features department (they've let me write about AIDS activism and shakeups to the Chicago drag scene!) to be reflected in the rest of the magazine. 11/

. @ChicagoMag's Twitter bio line says "We are Chicago." Let's make that true. 12/12