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Three years ago Carla Anderton sold her house, packed a suitcase full of baby food for her 1-year-old son and boarded a plane, leaving behind everything she knew in Memphis, Tenn.

And she never looked back.

She arrived in California, Pa., with hopes of a good working relationship with Roger Sealy, whom she had met on the Internet. The two planned to continue a literary magazine they had worked together on 1,000 miles apart.

Peer Amid is a literary arts magazine of original poetry, short stories, essays, artwork and photography. With a circulation of 1,000, the magazine is distributed regionally, nationally and internationally.

"It's something I've expanded from a very small press venture into a larger venture," Anderton said. "My aim is to enrich the literary arts scene here in California and in the whole Mon Valley region."

Sealy, publisher of the former Focus magazine of California, Pa., shares her vision and that's why Anderton wanted to come to California.

"I wanted to meet this person who was putting money behind this endeavor," said Anderton, adding she also had a desire to see the printing facilities and find out more about the layout process.

At that time, she and her son, Allen Free, were living in a home her grandparents left her after they were killed in a tornado in 1996.

"I sold (the house) and packed everything I had in two U-Hauls and moved up here," said the 25-year-old single mother. "I had no idea what it was going to be like. You never know what you're getting into when you get on a plane and go a thousand miles to meet somebody from the Internet."

When she came to the area Sealy offered her a place to live in a house he rents to college students. Anderton started attending California University of Pennsylvania, pursuing a degree in professional creative writing.

To complement her work with the magazine, Anderton came up with the idea to arrange an evening once a week where artists can meet to perform original poetry, music, drama and short stories.

During "Open Night Venue," artists meet 8 to 11 p.m. Tuesdays at Jozart Studios, 333 Second St., California. The art gallery and studio is located above the Dollar Store. The environment at the venue is alcohol- and substance-free.

"We pride ourselves on providing students and adults in the Mon Valley region with a place to enjoy culture while maintaining their sobriety," Anderton said.

The magazine and the venue help her earn credits through internships, but are not associated with the university.

"I wanted to do something that's like our college underground — like an open-mic type of deal," said Anderton.

But it isn't just college students who show up at Jozart Studios.

"We have a lot of people there who have never seen the inside of Cal U," Anderton said.

Linda Matthews started coming to the Tuesday night gathering a few weeks ago after she read about it in a newspaper advertisement.

"I'm still really nervous, but that's part of my personality," said the 32-year-old graduate of Seton Hill College in Greensburg.

Matthews comes to the venue to sing old standards and enjoys "jazzy, bluesy-type" music.

About 10 years ago, she performed in the Mon Valley and Pittsburgh areas with a band called Mirage.

When she heard about what was going on at Jozart, she found it exciting.

"It's a good outlet for artisans," Matthews said. "It seems like something the Valley needs."

Matthews is often accompanied by her children, Arista, 8, and Brennan, 6.

On a recent hot and humid Tuesday evening, Joe Morosky, one of the owners of Jozart Studios and his wife, Kim, arranged it so the children could draw while their mother performed.

Joe Morosky and Jay Paroda, owners of Jozart Studios, said they welcomed the opportunity to play host to the venue.

"The possibilities are endless," said Paroda, when talking about what could develop as a result of artists gathering and sharing their work.

Since the group started meeting in February, many artists have joined together to not only produce a music CD, but also shoot a movie of Anderton's play, "99 ways to lose your faith in God."

Artists who gather there are always encouraged to submit works for Peer Amid, which will be published again in August.

Anderton hopes the August edition will be an expanded 48-page periodical to include longer works she's been sent. She's working with ad revenue and fund-raisers to pay for the issue.

Anderton started Peer Amid in 1994 while she was living in Memphis.

Anderton, who had been editor-in-chief of her high school newspaper, had transferred to a new high school and was told she'd have to be there a year and take certain classes before she could write for the newspaper at that school.

"I thought the heck with that. I'll just start my own magazine and that's really what I was looking to do anyway," Anderton said.

Anderton got a few "creative types" together at the school and they all submitted original writing.

"I laid it out in Microsoft Word and I gave it to my mom and she took it to her work and ran it off on a copy machine," Anderton said. "Everyone was real excited about it, so it kind of gave me a new enthusiasm for something. It was something I wanted to stick with."

After a while, she parted ways with her fellow writers.

"I kept the original idea and took it to the Internet, which is how I ended up in California, Pa.," Anderton said.

In California, Sealy was on the Internet one day in 1997 when he found Peer Amid.

"This idea was such a good one," Sealy said. "It was like I had been thinking about it (an online literary magazine) and there it was."

Sealy contacted Anderton through e-mail in 1997 and shared his background as owner and publisher of the former Focus magazine that was published in California from 1990-96.

"I had a big interest in the arts and poetry and drama and music," said Sealy, who plays the piano.

Sealy and Anderton found their personalities clicked and decided to work together on the magazine. They completed the first two issues by corresponding by mail and the Internet.

"When it did happen I was really impressed by the fact that it was from all over the world," Sealy said.

"It's a worldwide thing. We have contributors that don't live in this country," Anderton explained. "We've had people order it from as far away as New Zealand because we've been so visible on the Internet."

Anderton, who has taught Web design classes at Douglas School of Business in Monessen, is the Web master for the magazine's online site.

The Internet site, which was more than 100 pages at one time, got a lot of attention.

"That site won 32 awards, so naturally we got a lot of traffic just from award sites," Anderton said. "They (the awards) are all symbolic. They don't give you any money and there's not a lot of prestige in it other than they send you a graphic and you put it up on your Web site. But at least it proves that somebody took the time to really look at your Web site and to review it."

Peer Amid has a temporary Web site at www.geocities.com/peer_amid.

Working through the Internet will help Anderton when she charts her future after graduation.

She said because a lot of the work is done on the Internet, it can be done from just about anywhere she can plug in her computer.

She hopes to wind up living in England at some point in the future, but she tries to live her life by the saying: "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

"Two years ago I never envisioned myself making a movie. I never envisioned myself being the host of an open-mike night. I would have never been able to get up in front of people and do that," Anderton said. "Well, now I realize that if I want that to exist, that I've got to take charge and ... do it or it's not going to exist."

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