“Newtopia was born because there are no other publications like it,” says Charles Shaw, editor in chief of the six-month-old Web zine. Shaw has supported himself for years as a freelance copywriter and as a writer and editor for publications such as UR Chicago and Punk Planet and Web sites like 3 AM Magazine and Web Del Sol. Newtopia grew out of his frustration with the leftist rhetoric he feels is standard to magazines like the Nation or the Progressive. “Left-wing publications have very specific canons,” he says. “There are public-interest stories to beat the band, and stories about bums in the suburbs, but what do the people think? I realized that though there was no way to express that in the media, there was this whole reservoir of great talent on the Internet.”
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Shaw’s regular contributors–many of whom double as editors as needed–come from all over. Tucson’s Catherine O’Sullivan writes “Diary of a Mad Mom,” a stream-of-consciousness column on raising kids in a politically aware environment. Writing from London, Cameron Carter provides scathingly honest accounts of what they think of us over there. Kimberly Nichols, of Palm Desert, California, specializes in exploding sexual taboos.
