In the early 90's I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be one of (mostly) three people to put together an alternative/progressive newspaper called Polemicist for the University of Texas at Austin community.  Scott Henson and Tom Philpott had started it, writing and editing it themselves.  I saw an early issue and was struck by how good the writing was.  It wasn't typical preaching to the choir, it backed up its positions so forcefully that it would be hard to rebut.  It never resorted to hackneyed, overused clichés and rhetoric to describe the opposing side.  And the research was impressive: they scooped the local media on big issues more than once.

But while the journalism was first-rate, the layout was atrocious.  I called up Scott and Tom up and offered to do the design and layout, and they agreed.  For the next year or so it was mostly the three of us, them producing the content and me making it look good.  I did a small amount of writing, headline-writing, and editing, but the content was really their genius.  At some point Kathy Mitchell joined the editorial team.

Shortly after that, they fired me without telling me; they just didn't show up to my place as usual to work on the next issue.  I tried to ask what was going on but I never got an coherent answer.

Despite the bitter ending, I was very glad to be a part of the project, and to this day I feel it's some of my finest work.

Here's the archive of the old issues.