***Now Closed***

Beginning in January, this project will collect work by as many people as possible detailing a day in their life. The hope is that this will, collectively, work as a sort of archiving of qualitative data — loose and inaccurate, but specific information about what people are doing with their days. What are you thinking about, what are you looking at, where are you on the internet, where are you in the physical world, what are you reading, what are you watching, what are you talking to friends about, what are people around you saying? 

This time capsule of sorts will look at all of the people making things now, to romanticize them a bit the way we romanticize artists in the past, to do a sort of record-collecting that is not relying on the internet or algorithms or short-form video, and to build something that lets all of our lived realities be complicated and nuanced and honest. A collection of days that young people, any people, can look at and know that there is no one way to shape a life and that there will always be a myriad of glorious options available to them. 

If you’re interested in being a part of the project, you will be assigned a day sometime in the year and then it will be up to you how you want to describe that day. Writing, visuals, anything fit to print. You will be given more specific instruction as your day draws near, but generally: this is an incredibly open prompt and the interest is in how you interpret it, you will only be responsible for talking about one day and should approach the container of that day as creatively as you like, and you should only include as much personal information as you are comfortable with. We will go back and forth with you on any editing needed, and then it will join the collection online, with optional excerpts on Instagram. At the end of December, the entire collection will be printed in an anthology of the year.

If interested, please email bigtablepress@gmail.com with the subject line “This Year” and some information about who you are (age, location, what kinds of things you’re doing with your life, etc), and if applicable, what time of year you’d prefer to be assigned to.