Everything you need to know about us

For Chicago residents looking for a simple way to dig deeper into their city and how it works, The Windy Citizen is a web magazine that serves up daily doses of original Chicago reporting, commentary and links to the top headlines from Chicago blogs and newspaper sites.

The Windy Citizen is hyperlocal, with a specific interest in Chicago neighborhood news and exploring the many scenes that comprise the city's unique culture.

Readers with Windy Citizen accounts can publish their own blog articles, photos and videos on the site. Site editors, Chicago-based journalists with credits at some of the world's top news organizations, sift through this material each day and promote the best of it to the front page, creating the city's first open source magazine.

The Windy Citizen is published by Brad Flora. Kayla Webley is the Editor in Chief. Sandi Villarreal is the Managing Editor.

The Windy Citizen was birthed from the remnants of another web site called The Chicago Methods Reporter, launched by Flora in October 2006 shortly after he enrolled in the Medill School of Journalism's graduate program. The Methods Reporter began as a quick and easy way to publish his work and the work of his colleagues to the web. During the Chicago Methods Reporter's year and a half existence, numerous A-list publications linked to its stories and it was named a top "News and Reporting" site by Chicago Magazine.

How do I write for The Windy Citizen?

• News and Features: The Windy Citizen accepts submissions for breaking news and feature stories with a strong local angle. We're big print fans, but are particularly interested in stories that incorporate video, photography and flash. Send pitches to Editor-in-Chief Kayla Webley.

• Blogging: The Windy Citizen is always looking for new bloggers, columnists and one-off commentators. If you've got an idea for a Chicago-centric blog or are already blogging on Chicago-related matters and are interested in expanding your audience, let's talk. At this early stage in the project, blogs and posting privileges are invitation only.

Current Needs

• Producer, Special Projects: The Windy Citizen is looking for an HTML/CSS ace to produce 1-2 special features per month. If storytelling's your thing and you've got a favorite text editor, we'd like to talk to you.
• Developer/System Administrator: The Windy Citizen is looking for a developer/system administrator to further development of the site and to advise on technical matters.

How do I intern for the Windy Citizen?

The Windy Citizen hires two part-time interns for the spring, summer and fall. Spring and fall applicants must be full-time students. Applications should include a résumé, three clips (published articles, blog entries, and classroom assignments all acceptable), and a short critique of a story that's appeared on the Windy Citizen lately. Send applications to Kayla Webley.

Can I link to your stories? Can I re-post images from your site?

Yes and yes. You may link to and quote Windy Citizen stories on your site and re-publish photos so long as you include explicit attribution and a backlink. Spam bloggers who re-post entire stories to their sites will not be tolerated. For a more technical discussion of our terms of use, click here.

How do I advertise on the Windy Citizen?

Click here.

Who are you?

Kayla Webley is the Editor-in-Chief of the Windy Citizen. She is currently a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and has interned at The Portland Oregonian, The Seattle Times, The Scripps Howard News Wire and National Public Radio. Her work has also been published by The Rocky Mountain News, The San Diego Union-Tribune, La Prensa San Deigo, The Arizona Daily Star, The Ventura County Star, The Kitsap Sun, The Deseret News and HGTV Ideas Magazine. Kayla is a 2008 Carnegie-Knight Journalism Fellow, and can be reached here.

Sandi Villarreal is the Managing Editor of The Windy Citizen and a graduate candidate in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She has worked for the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis and the Associated Baptist Press. Her stories have been published in The New York Times online edition, the Chicago Journal, the Daily Herald and the Baptist Standard. She can be reached here.

Brad Flora is The Windy Citizen's publisher and founder. He has written for Slate Magazine, the Chicago Defender, Northwest Indiana Times, Daily Southtown, and EContent Magazine. He mans the site’s Wish You Were Here column when he’s not dealing with a service outage or design problem. He is a 2007 Carnegie-Knight Journalism Fellow. He can be reached at here.

Jacob Nelson is a News and Features Editor of the Windy Citizen. A sophomore at Medill School of Journalism, he’s written for the Chicago Reader as well as the Daily Northwestern and the Weekly. Originally from South Florida, he’s also written for the Miami New Times, the Miami Herald, and the Sun-Sentinel. In addition to the Windy Citizen, he currently works as the Features Editor for Chicago Unzipped, a guidebook to the city for students and young professionals. He also blogs about music in the city, and can be contacted here.

Karen Leigh a News and Features Editor for the Windy Citizen. Karen spent the first half of '08 covering Clinton, Obama, and McCain from various campaign planes, buses, Indian reservations (once) and tourist-attraction restaurants (twice) as a reporter for Bloomberg News. When not on the trail, she covered Congress and the White House. Previously, Karen worked for TIME magazine in London and Moscow, Entertainment Weekly and Women's Wear Daily in New York City, and various newspapers on the West Coast. Her writing has also appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press, the Virginian Pilot-Ledger, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Huffington Post, and the New York Sun, among others. For the past year she has been an on-air correspondent for Fox News Radio. Karen is currently a graduate student at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Career goals are to earn a pilot's license, report in Baghdad, and cameo on the new "Beverly Hills, 90210." She can be reached here.

Kristin Maun is the Windy Citizen's Blog Editor and a senior at Northwestern University studying Journalism and English. Her work has appeared in various publications, such as Catalyst-Chicago, and she currently blogs for the LOGO network's political blog VisibleVote08.com. Kristin also works as an organizer for the Estrojam Music and Culture Festival, a music and social change revolution that
seeks to inspire women and activists by giving female artists a place to express their voice. She can be reached here.

Melissa Tussing is the Windy Citizen's Breaking News Editor. She is a sophomore in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Melissa has worked with both northbynorthwstern.com and the Northwestern News Network. She is also a member of the Medill Student Advisory Council. Melissa hails from Darien, Ill., and interned last summer at the Lemont Reporter/Met, covering Lemont, Ill. She can be reached here.

More Backmatter

• About the Windy Citizen
• Advertise on the Windy Citizen
• Terms of use
• Contact us