One Pluckin' Year
By Pluck Staff, published December 27, 2011

   Photo Credit

This past year has been quite the exciting adventure for us here at Pluck Magazine. As our initial foray into the wild world of online publishing, 2011 has been filled with many firsts for us.  Since the New Year is nearly upon us, we figured it was only fitting to look back and share some of our favorite moments, which, of course, were only possible through the generous help of you, our loyal Plucksters.

• In November, we marked our unofficial one year anniversary. It’s hard to imagine that a whole year has passed since we first began bandying about emails to one another dreaming up the concept of a magazine.

• Max Levant’s piece, which offered a different perspective on sex, proved to be particularly popular, receiving nearly 10,000 views in its first week and was even picked up by Dan Savage, Jezebel, and Reddit.

• Pluck has allowed us to interview quite a few artists, entrepreneurs, and inspiring individuals, but we’ll never forget our first: Patrice Hutton, the founder of Writers in Baltimore Schools. Thanks to Patrice for granting us our first interview while setting the bar for great interviews throughout the year.

• We became kind of a big deal in Germany – not David Hasselhoff big, but like Copernicus big. Frankly, we were a bit surprised to see that Pluck had made its way overseas and turned out to be a mild hit in Germany, resulting in our first international contributor – Stefanie Sturm, who shared her love of the English language.

Since we’re all in such a festive mood, we’ve also decided to dig a bit deeper and share each our favorite “fuck yea, we’re awesome” moments of the year below:

ANNA

Favorite Pluck Articles:
I am not Fooled by You, Virgin America
The Pluck Guide to Networking

The Article I Wish I'd Written:
What Are You Doing With Your Life?: A Comic: By Will Parschalk

I simply lack this ability to draw…pretty much anything. Will’s piece was so inventive and makes me hope that we get more illustrative story-telling in 2012.

What I’m looking forward to most in 2012?

I am looking forward to launching more social/political series that relate to issues facing our authorship and young people everywhere. I hope that as we do this we are able to offer useful information and resources for the future.

EUGENE

Favorite Pluck Articles:
A Conversation with Nicholas Maggio
How to Move Home With Your Parents and Keep Your Dignity: A Step by Step Guide

The Article I Wish I'd Written:
My Self-Portrait by Colin Nissan

There’s nothing like self-inflated Stephen Colbert-esque braggadocio to make a piece hilarious and “My Self-Portrait” oozes with it.

What I’m looking forward to most in 2012?

More videos of kittens on turntables or eating large quantities of obscure artisanal cheeses – I couldn’t decide.

MATT

Favorite Pluck Articles:
A Conversation with Reason Furniture 
Returning from Uganda

What I am looking forward to most in 2012:
Our student debt series- a chance to educate and empower about an issue that touches all of us. 

Either that or adopting our first office platypus. 

The Article I Wish I'd Written:
Reading "Hard Lessons" brought me inside San Quentin. More than that, though, it showed that me the places we think are the farthest from our lives are sometimes closer to home than we realize. 

And for 2012…
It’s been a helluva year and pushing into 2012 we hope to make it even better. In January we will launch Pluck’s in-depth series on student debt. We’ll be investigating why two-thirds of college students must now borrow money to earn their degree, why the average amount of debt has rocketed to more than $25,000, and, most importantly, what you can do to minimize debt and help reverse this growing problem.

In the meantime have a fabulous New Year’s.

Yours in the ranks,
The Pluck Editors (Anna, Eugene, Matt, Nico)

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