We all must start somewhere. Every journey starts with a single step, every story starts with a single word, every song starts with a single sound, and every living being starts with a single zygote. As we build and grow and spread, it is easy to forget that once, humanity wandered out of Africa, a single step at a time, each generation both building on their ancestors and starting anew, alighting into new frontiers, chasing new dreams beyond the horizon and into the future.

So tell us. Where did you begin? Where did your forebears begin? Where did anything begin? From whence did we come and to where are we rushing? In the September issue of InTheFray Magazine, we would like to tell the stories of the beginnings of things, be they art, science, history, language, or whatever else you can think of.

Something further to think about: Our September issue aims to explore the beginnings of things, and in October, November and December we’d like to work through the middles of stories and finish with the ends of things as 2009 comes to a close. If you have a longer selection or story idea that might be suited for a three- or four-part treatment, please consider this as you submit.

Contributors interested in pitching relevant news features, poetry/fiction, cultural criticism, commentary pieces, personal essays, visual essays, travel stories, or book reviews should e-mail us at prelude-at-inthefray-dot-org. Send us a well-developed, one-paragraph pitch for your proposed piece NO LATER THAN AUGUST 10, 2009.  First-time contributors are urged to review our submissions guidelines at http://inthefray.org/submit and review recent pieces published in InTheFray Magazine at http://inthefray.org.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.