Request for Contributions -

If you're reading this, it is probably because I or someone else asked you for your contribution to this project. I welcome any and all views and perspectives - no matter which side of the issue you are on. Post your thoughts here - I would be happy to add you to the list of posters if you want to do more than comment. Better yet - e-mail me your creation - be it an essay, article, podcast, YouTube video, graphic or whatever!

The deadline for the project is December 9, so please try to get submissions in by the 7th. If you can't make it by then - no worries! I'll happily include it, as I plan to continue this project specifically, and ChildFree Isses generally, as a personal project.

So here is the description of the project as posted on my course blog:

My project is beginning to take shape. I am sending out a plea to various leaders in the childfree community and asking them to contribute. Although I still have a ways to go, the prototype for the website is here.

The plan is to make the website a collection of information and opinions on cafeteria plans - including sample letters to employers and letters to the editor, arguments on both sides (and responses), the podcast series posted below, and hopefully a discussion via its companion blog.

The blog, Childfree Issues, will hopefully have a mandate to carry on after it serves as the launching place and forum for this one. The idea is to collect discussion on advocacy issues in a single area. While there are great social organizations such as No Kidding already out there, and much discussion on these issues on various childfree discussion board, hopefully this can create a centralized launching pad for more advocacy.

In this vein, I have asked various leaders of No Kidding to participate - including those in Canada who might add an international perspective to what is now a domestic project. Hopefully we will be able to craft this separately, so as not to create a conflict of interest with the group's purely social mandate.

I have also sought, and received assistance from the creators of what I see as the best childfree-related internet projects. This includes Adult Spaces - a podcast that addresses all sorts of childfree issues, UnScripted - the Childfree Life, a high-quality zine with articles about all sorts of topics of interest to the childfree, Purple Women - a team blog with contributions from a range of childfree women and their friends, and the Childless By Choice Project - a massive research project leading to a documentary and a book.

I lost a week due to a death in the family, and was forced to tighten up - I had originally planned to 'play' with different media and create a compilation of different media for the final project. The fact that collaboration is encouraged makes this much easier, and more fun.

Thank you!
Laura Ciaccio