upside chronicles about us page cover photo

About Upside Chronicles

Announcements from outside the echo chamber.

Start
Upside Chronicles is an independent media source comprised of writers, editors, web devs, historians, and designers from the media industry who wanted an outlet to create content about things that matter to them. 

Upside Chronicles’ mission

Our goal is to not let the voices of the rich and powerful to dominate the conversation about what matters and what doesn’t, who’s important and who’s not, and who deserves remembering for what. History has shown that many great minds and characters were never given due credit. 
 
As such, our content strategy falls into the following categories:

The story behind the story

Media is a tough and expensive game. 

Most of the people dedicating their time to Upside Chronicles are from various corners of the media ecosystem. From that experience, we have a collective understanding of how the mechanics work. We are donating our time and skillsets to explore stories behind the new cycle with the goal of adding dimension worth considering to the record. 

As we know all too well from our own experiences, quality journalism doesn’t pay. But that doesn’t mean it has no value. In fact, we’d say the cost of a world free of muckrakers is simply too high to consider. 

Upside Chronicles presents: Life Chronicles

Work in progress

We are currently in the process of building library of biographies of real people that might not make history books, but who’s life chronicles are worth documenting.
 
Ultimately, our goal is to build a historical record that isn’t written ‘by the victors’ as they say, but by stories of real people who’s lives we can all learn from in some way or another. 
 
We hope that by by putting the stories of people who would otherwise get swept into the dustbins of history, we can nurture a more reflective historical record – one that more accurately depicts life as we know it, and isn’t dominated by the stories and perspectives of a few. 

Innovative ideas

Part of our editorial philosophy also includes exploring ideas that warrant a closer look. It has come to our attention that a lot of great innovation, journalism, and research is filtered out by gatekeepers who can be stuck in their own world views, egos, personal interests, and biases. 
 
That sometimes includes scientific journals, industry publications, and large scale digital news publishers. If you have research and other content that you feel is supported with concrete evidence such as data, professionals in the field, official documents (such as FOIA requests or official correspondence/documentation from organizations, etc.), we may want to publish your story to give it a platform. 
 
Publishing such content means taking some risks – ones we are willing to take for the sake of innovation, iteration, and growth. Our greatest value proposition to our readers is not infallibility: It is the support of a small collective of people with a genuine curiosity about the world we live in and without direct conflicts of interest. We are willing to be cautiously bold. 

Culture and opinions

Life is multifaceted. We welcome short stories (especially ones with near-term future scientific fiction angles), unexpected opinions, and artistic work (books, shows, video games, etc.) submissions. 

Editorial inquiries

If you have any questions or corrections about the content published on Upside Chronicles, please feel free to reach out to our editorial team at [email protected]. Please be advised that most of the team working on this project do so as a passion project, so it may take up to two weeks to get back to you based on volume and flow. 

Submission guidelines

If you are interested in contributing to Upside Chronicles, please email our editorial team at [email protected]. 

Presently, we are not funded and consequently, cannot offer pay. We can however, offer custom graphics to enrich your content, a byline, and an author page. Pen names and anonymity are also okay in our book. 

We hope to be able to offer financial compensation for contributions in the near future. 

 

Our team

Tanja Fijalkowski 

Founder, Editor-in-Chief

Tanja Fijalkowski is an award-winning editor and writer. She attended University of California, San Diego where she majored in Literature and Writing. 

She spent several years as a small business insurance underwriter before she transitioned into print publishing. She was hired by Printers Row Publishing Group where she worked on licensing deals with entertainment brands including Disney, Warner Brothers, and Blizzard Activision. She was the lead editor for Strange Crime, part of the publisher’s Strange Series which won 2019 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award Silver Winner in Humor, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Winner – 2018 BRONZE Winner for Humor (Adult Nonfiction), and was Amazon Editor Chris Schulp’s pick for top true crime books. 

Tanja later joined the 101 Network where she launched History 101, the first of a collectively branded network of sites. Within one year, the site was seeing millions of visitors per day, the social following had reached 300,000, and the network had launched an additional three 101 sites. 

Presently, Tanja works as a freelancer writer on topics related to business finance, real estate, cryptocurrency, and start ups. 

 

Jack Tazman

Contributor

Jack Tazman is a regular contributor to Upside Chronicles.

He is a Baltimore, Maryland native. He attended Washington University where he studied political science and economics. Since then, he worked as a ghostwriter for various national news organizations specializing in politics and policy. He now resides in New York City as a freelance writer and business consultant.

Gosha Styzniewska

General Counsel