badcheck

As many of you know, we have had a long-standing relationship with Chile Pepper Magazine. Besides being subscribers for about twelve years in which we’ve saved our magazines like some men save their Playboy issues, we have also been contributors on an increasing basis. From the early days of our own relationship when the picture of our wedding cake appeared (complete with intricate chile peppers sculpted from frosting) to various mentions of our blog as it grew to prominence within the industry.

During the reign of Gretchen VanEsselstyn as Chile Pepper’s editor, we offered our writing services to the magazine for an article in their annual “Hot Sauce” edition. This article, entitled “Love at First Spice,” was our first full-length writing project for the magazine. Since we offered to do the article, that was a labor of love. However, our next foray would take things to the next level.

A few months ago, we were approached by Chile Pepper’s newest editor (Laura Dankowski) about writing another article for the magazine…this one about the most recent Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire. Without us soliciting this, she offered us a generous fee (the amount we will not disclose) to write another article for the magazine. This article became “The Ohio Players,” and was featured in the most recent edition of Chile Pepper Magazine.

So why are we blogging about this? The answer is that Chile Pepper has strangely not paid us. Not just that, but they have strangely gone silent by not answering emails or even a recent phone call. In this way, Chile Pepper has truly fucked up erred.

At this point, it’s not totally about the money. Had it not been offered by them first (and agreed to by us), we would have not even given this a second thought. However, this level of misdirection and subterfuge is unbecoming a national publication whose respect we have had for more than a decade. We were warned, by another author who has written for Chile Pepper, that they seldom (if ever) got around to paying their writers. That said, we crossed our fingers and hope for better in our case.

It seems as though it was us who fucked up erred. Hopefully this can be reconciled nicely.

Vizzini

Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!

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