Happy New Year from the Westside Review
A look back and a look forward
Happy New Year, readers and subscribers!
While Issue 0 of Westside Review has been out for less than two full months, I’ve been on board for almost a year, and Vanessa Stokes had that concept for even longer than that.
It was Vanessa who had the idea for a quarterly, glossy magazine covering the West Side of Chicago. It was a vision that I believed was, at the very least worth a try. There was potential, plenty of it. The stories are there, unreported and under-reported. The people worth profiling, the businesses worth profiling, are there. The history, the art, the impressive buildings, the gorgeous parks - it was all there. We just had to present it in the format that did it all justice.
The response to Issue 0 has been overwhelming. Everybody who got their hands of the physical issue was impressed and wanted to share it. Even those who didn’t know much, if anything, about the West Side were impressed. The quality of paper, the beautiful painted cover by Luis Colindres, the articles, the photos, the great photo essay, and the way everything was laid out all got high marks.
Much of the above was created by me, and I don’t like tooting my own horn, but I will happily praise Francia Garcia Hernandez’s article (which she finished at 2-freaking-AM), Keen Cook’s photos, Vanessa’s articles and Alexie Young’s sponsored feature (which was well-written and well laid out).
The Westside Review Substack got 32 subscribers and $380 in pledges less than a week after it officially launched it. Less than a week. Honestly, I didn’t think we’d get any pledges this early, so I didn’t even look at pledge pages until the pledges started coming in. The growth has slowed since then - we currently stand at 45 subscribers and $460 in pledges. But I like to think that the fact that we got such a strong start shows the real need, the real desire for something like the Westside Review.
As we close out the year, I do want to reflect a bit on my own journey.
Early this year, I got fired from Growing Community Media, the publisher of Austin Weekly News, where I covered the West Side continuously since July 2015 - first as a freelancer, than as a part-time staff reporter, than as a full-time staff reporter. I am an unlikely person to have covered this beat for this long - a white immigrant with a prominent accent. And I admit that I originally applied for the freelance opportunity because I needed the money. I had no idea what I was doing, and I learned a lot through painful trial and error.
But here is the thing. I did my best to learn from my mistakes. I persisted. I discovered beauty and joy. I watched ideas turn into businesses and events. I watched activists become elected officials (or at least made a good try of it). I watched kids grow up. I got to know the people that live on the West Side. I can say without hesitation that some of the most passionate, most caring, most genuine people live on the West Side.
When COVID-19 pandemic hit, some of my freelance gigs dried up in an instant. My grandmother (on my dad’s side) passed away. When one West Sider I would like to consider a friend found out about it, she asked “what’s your address?” I shared it without a second thought. A week later, I got a card with a thoughtful, sincere message offering condolences and giving me just a bit of comfort. And it also had a $200 check. I used it to buy groceries and cover some other bills.
When the first round of stimulus checks went out, another West Sider gave me a portion of her check to be, because, she said, she believed in what I was doing and she wanted to support me.
This like this is what I mean when I say that West Side has given me more than I can ever hope to repay.
We got a lot of challenges ahead of us - money to raise, people to hire. But I believe that it’s worth the effort.
It was an honor of a lifetime to cover the West Side for 8.5 years. It was an honor to have a chance to contribute to the Westside Review. I hope I will get to keep on doing my part to bring the vision so many of you believed in and supported.
I hope you’ll stay with us for the ride - and invite others to get on board.
Sincerely
Igor Studenkov
Editor, Westside Review