What
Weekly.
An experiment in documenting the people making Baltimore interesting.
We made a magazine about the city we loved.
What Weekly was our experiment in documenting the people making Baltimore interesting. From 2010 to 2016, we photographed and published the artists, musicians, makers, neighborhoods, performances, parties, and ideas shaping the city around us.
This archive follows the story as it appears in The Pronoia Effect, with photographs, films, and artifacts from those years.
The original What Weekly website is also still live, with thousands of stories from the people who made it with us.
Explore whatweekly.com ↗
People started
paying attention.
What began as a scrappy experiment in documenting Baltimore started showing up in the press.
The City Paper first featured What Weekly. Baltimore Magazine named What Weekly Best New Magazine in 2011 and Best ’Zine in 2013, praising the photography and the way we documented the city’s creative renaissance. National and international outlets followed, including The Guardian, New York Magazine, and The Huffington Post.
The little email magazine we weren’t sure anyone would read had found an audience.
We took the absurdity
seriously.
For two years, What Weekly didn’t pay anyone, us included. When we decided it was time to start paying our contributors and hire a managing editor, we launched a fundraising campaign in the only way that felt appropriate.
First came unicorn poop. Then a professional magician. And finally, a full-blown noir spoof dreamed up and made with our writers and friends.
The entire production cost $22.
We hit our fundraising goal. Then a donor matched it with another $10,000.
Apparently, absurdity paid.
What Weekly: A True Baltimore Love Story, 2012Directed by Nancy Murray. Cinematography by Carr Kizzier. Concept and script by Nancy Murray, Justin Allen, Philip Laubner, David London and Brooke Hall. Photography by Philip Laubner. Make-up and wardrobe by Julie Bent. Editing and post-production by David London and Brooke Hall. Starring Brooke Hall and Justin Allen.
Most people got the joke.
But not everyone.
The noir spoof got attention. It also ruffled a few feathers.
So our friend, filmmaker Matt Kelley, stepped in and made us another fundraising video. This one traded noir and inside jokes for something simpler: the people, the work, and why What Weekly mattered.
Same impossible little magazine. Different flavor.
This is some of
what we saw.
We photographed artists, musicians, makers, neighborhoods, performances, parties, and ideas, building a living record of the creative community we were lucky enough to be part of.
Photography by Philip Laubner, Theresa Keil, Larry Cohen, Matt Kelley, Brooke Hall, and more.
To the What Weekly community, who helped us tell another story of Baltimore and became dear friends along the way.
Thank you to Philip Laubner, Theresa Keil, Larry Cohen, Matt Kelley, David London, Barbara Wilgus, Jess Gartner, Kyle Fritz, Nancy Murray, Lee Boot, Peter Davis, David Warfield, Jordan Goodman, Jessica Laubner, Shaun and Sheila Callahan, Minás Konsolas and Peggy Hoffman, Julie and Max Bent, Kelly Keenan Trumpbour, John Cammack, Chic Dambach, Betsy O’Neill Collie, Scott Burkholder, Ed and Linda Gross, Matt Muirhead, Amy Cavanaugh, and every contributor and friend not named here.
Explore whatweekly.com ↗
Collection 01 · Baltimore, 2013–2016Light CityThe idea that began on a road trip and became a citywide festival of light drawing more than 400,000 people in its first year.
Collection 03 · East Coast, 2009–2016The PartiesThe parties that appear in The Pronoia Effect, and a few of the nights that made us fall in love with Baltimore.