Notes On A Scandal Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews novelist Zoe Heller and screenwriter Patrick Marber about Notes On A Scandal

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Inland Empire Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer-director David Lynch about Inland Empire

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Venus Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews screenwriter Hanif Kureishi about Venus

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The year in Canadian Magazines.

As we wind down the year (this will be the last post of 2006; best of the season and see you in January), it's time for our list of the good, the bad and the gnarly from the previous year, as posted on Canadian Magazines.Physician, heal thyself award to the Canadian Medical Association for first privatizing its prestigious Canadian Medical Association Journal, then firing the editors because they

Outdoor Photography Canada to launch this spring

A new photography magazine is planning to launch this spring. Outdoor Photography Canada will be a quarterly, dedicated to landscapes, wildlife, nature and sport and the views that wilderness has to offer, combining love of the outdoors and photography in one magazine. The magazine will be buying one-time rights to photos submitted by readers. It's to be published by Sunlight Media of Brampton,

Changes in business and professional group at Rogers

Further tightening at the Business and Professional Publishing division of Rogers, as Senior Vice-President John Milne consolidates his hold with the departure of four trade publishers: three out the door, one transferred over to the consumer division. This, according to a story in mastheadonline (sub req'd).Gone are:Richard Elliott, executive publisher Marketing Group/ Meetings and Travel Group;

Canadian mags among Utne independent nominees

The Utne Independent Press Awards are a big deal, announced in its January/February issue; there is usually a tease at the end of the previous year, as there is this year with a number of Canadian titles in the finalists list: The Walrus (General Excellence, Best Writing, Best New Publication), Geez (Best New Publication), Maisonneuve (Best Writing, Best Design), Spacing (Best Design), Shameless

Blink, whatever that means

We came across the premier issue of a new magazine called Blink, a quarterly out of Toronto that says it is chronicling the new Asian Canadian experience ("bicultural motion").The cover of the magazine plays to a sterotype of pouty, muscular young Asian males, draped over fast cars and glancing at an incongruously dressed young Asian woman (particularly in November). So, pretty standard stuff for

One-way flow of Maritimers continues west

According to the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, nearly 13,000 Atlantic Canadians moved to Alberta for work between July 2005 and July 2006. That's not the end of it, according to a story in on CBC.ca.The think tank says the flow of skilled workers west will continue for some time and that's despite efforts like the magazine supplement published this week in several Alberta newspapers,

It's promotion, but is it news?

Am I alone in wondering why it's news that Time magazine's Canadian edition chose Prime Minister Stephen Harper as its newsmaker of the year? Canadian outlets have fallen over themselves (as they do every year) in breathlessly reporting this, a self-serving promotional gimmick that was tired a long time ago.

The Pursuit of Happyness Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews screenwriter Steve Conrad about The Pursuit of Happyness

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Custom publishing now accounts for 25% of marketing budgets

Companies in the U.S. spend about 18 per cent more on custom publishing in 2006 than the year before, accordingto a new study released by the Custom Publishing Council and Publications Management magazine, reported in Folio:. The average amount that companies spent on custom publishing in 2006 grew to just under US$1.13 million. It now accounts for 24 percent of the total amount that companies

FHM's raunchy gambit fails, magazine to close

"What it tells us about the category is if you don't innovate, you die." That was the response of the editor of Stuff magazine to the news that FHM, one of the pack of "lads' magazines", is closing in March, according to a story in MediaDaily News. FHM had shown signs of trouble in recent months, including being forced to cover up increasingly raunchy covers on newsstands and wholesale firing of

Canada Post contribution to Publications Assistance Program to continue

PAP is safe, for now. The federal government has directed Canada Post to continue contributing its $15 million in support of the Publications Assistance Program. In a statement made today, Lawrence Cannon, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, said he had instructed Canada Post to continue the contribution for at least two more years. His announcement was made in tandem with

Building on success

Now here's an idea, with the awards season coming up (deadlines looming for the National Magazine Awards and the Kenneth R. Wilson awards). In Malaysia, they had an advertising awards program (Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia -- the Kancil awards) where the prizes were shaped like Lego™ blocks, so you could stack 'em!

National Post is 'winner' of the year for its correction

The National Post has tied for winner of the year for The Crunks 06, the compilation from the site Regret The Error of corrections and apologies from newspapes and magazines. It won for its correction following the May 19 front page splash of a story from an Iranian freelancer that said non-Muslims would have to wear special badges. (It used up almost as much space explaining how it came to

Billable hours in a freelancer's life

On the the blog Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style, there is an interesting item showing the likely impact of "billable hours" on the lifestyles of young lawyers.We thought it would be interesting to do a variant of this for magazine freelancers. We have assumed a 5- day work week, 8 hours sleep a night and two weeks vacation.Waking hours per day 16Waking hours per work week (5 days)

Making sure that what you see is what's there

Separating truth from fiction, particularly in pictures, has become a vexing question for publishers and news organizations like Reuters. You'll recall that a while back Reuters fired a news photographer who 'enhanced' some pictures digitally by adding extra plumes of smoke or trails of rocket fire to make his pictures more compelling.Tom Glocer, the chief executive officer of Reuters, made a

Rodale integrates print and online sales

Rodale Magazines, the publishers of Prevention, Men's Health, Best Life and Runner's World, have combined their print and online forces for advertising sales and given its top editors an increase in responsibility for developing brand extensions in a variety of media, according to a story in MediaDaily News. It's a sign not only of the increasing integration of print and online but also of online

Dinsdale departs as Walrus ad sales manager

Rolf Dinsdale, the associate publisher of The Walrus (responsible for advertising sales) has resigned. He says it is amicable and mutual, the result of "a fundamental disagreement about publishing philosophy".His departure comes mere weeks after the appointment of Shelley Ambrose as the new publisher of the magazine. However, he says the idea has been gestating for some time.

Seasonal lures for the long term

Broken Pencil, the magazine about zine and indie culture, has come up with a couple of nifty package deals to push longer-term subs this holiday season.One package at $30 gets a 2-year sub (8 issues), a copy of Hal Niedzvecki's book Hello I'm Special: How Individuality became the New Conformity and a set of 5 BP pins. The other, at $28 has a 2-year sub, one copy each of earlier Niedzviecki books

New, free, media directory being launched by MediaPost

A free all-media directory MediaPost Rates & Data is being rolled out in the U.S. with more than 37,000 listings of major electronic and print media providers, with detailed information on contacts, addresses, rate cards, coverage reps, networks and many of the basic building blocks of a media buy. The free directory is being published by MediaPost, the publisher of MediaDaily News. (If there is

A real circulation drive

In an interesting piece of cross promotion, the Canadian Autombile Association (CAA) is offering subscriptions to the monthly kids' magazine The Magazine for a discounted rate of $24.95 (normally $29.95), with the stated benefit of turning 25% of the revenues over to help support school safety patrol programs. It was promoted in the December e-letter circulated to CAA members in south central

The Queen Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews screenwriter Peter Morgan about The Queen

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PWAC urges freelancers to shun deal with London Free Press

In what may be a significant marker along the road to asserting freelancer's rights, the Professional Writers Association of Canada and the fledgling Canadian Freelancer's Union are urging freelancers in London, Ont. not to sign contracts with Sun Media/Quebecor's London Free Press. The new contracts, with a deadline of December 11, apparently make any further work with the paper contingent on

Mags Canada asks Ontario for tax credit, end to unfair competition and blue box equity

Magazines Canada wants a tax credit for its members in Ontario, a jurisidiction that is home to half of Canadian magazines and where every other cultural industry has such tax relief. The requuest was part of a pre-budget submission made this week to Greg Sorbara, the Ontario treasurer. It's not the first time a tax credit has been talked about.The magazine association said a tax credit would

Senator Campbell to Ezra Levant: "Nutz!"

Senator Larry Campbell, former Vancouver coroner, model for Da Vinci's Inquest and so on, takes off today after Western Standard editor publisher Ezra Levant for his criticism of the dual (Canadian, French) citizenship of new Liberal leader Stephane Dion.Is it a coincidence that there was a full moon at the same time as MP Pat Martin and Western Standard Editor Ezra Levant decided that Stéphane

Feathertale Review, still online, now on paper

The quirky, sometimes hilarious virtual magazine Feathertale Review has taken corporeal form as the premier issue of its print annual is now on sale. The 68-page annual is a collection of original humour from Graham Roumieu (Me Write Book), Robert Munsch (Love You Forever) and two-dozen writers, poets, and illustrators. The magazine specializes in short fiction, cartoons and poetry.Feathertale

Making the most of 2,000 words

Andrew Clark on the Toronto Freelance Editors and Writers (TFEW) e-list gives his formula for writing a "comprehensive" magazine piece within a limit of 2,000 words:Lead - 26 lines (set place, character etc)Billboard - outlines the major topics (say 7)Spin it out - each graph hits the major topicCloser - back to lead settingout shower, shave and time for a drink

Quote, unquote

"The dominant image of today's bride is that she is white, blond, blue-eyed and thin."-- Cynthia Frisby, associate professor of advertising at University of Missouri's School of Journalism, quoted in an article about a new study that shows significant racial bias in U.S. bridal magazines. Frisby and Erika Engstrom, professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, conducted the study by doing

New freedom for new editor-in-chief of Canadian Medical Association Journal

The Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) has a new editor-in-chief, the outcome of months of dispute and disagreement over editorial independence.Apparently, the new editor, Paul Hébert of Ottawa, a critical care physician, will be enjoying not only greater freedom from interference by the association, but also an enhanced budget to improve the quality and quantity of the research that

Widely published poet and novelist is named Poet Laureate

A poet who has been widely published in Canadian magazines throughout his career has been named Canada's poet laureate. John Steffler, who has published in the Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, Fiddlehead, Event, The Antigonish Review, Poetry in Canada, Queen's Quarterly, Descant and Canadian Literature. The post of poet laureate at least in theory means that he will have the responsibility for

Turning tables, the Atlantic Provinces try to lure their own back

It's tit for tat when it comes to recruiting skilled workers. In September, we wrote about a newspaper supplement called Move West that had scandalized Atlantic Canada by trying to lure its skilled workforce to move to Fort McMurray and places like that in the booming west.Now, according to a story on cbc.ca, playing to the homesickness of Maritimers who may have found that Alberta is not all

Department of familiarity

The current issue of Canadian Art (Fall, 2006) is a full-bleed reproduction of a painting by painter Karin Davie and it's quite handsome and eye-catching.However, it seemed familiar to one of our correspondents, who referred us to the Fall 2005 issue of The Link, the magazine of Bishop Strachan School in Toronto.The Link is published 3 times annually and goes to the students, family and friends

Transcon gives us 30 million chances to subscribe to More magazine

[NOTE: This post has been updated and corrected.]The power of being a multi-product, multi-media company and a printer to boot is nowhere better illustrated than in the $1.8 million launch* of the Canadian edition of More magazine, which Transcontinental Media is publishing in collaboration with the U.S. giant Meredith Corp. Out of the box, according to what publisher Francine Tremblay and

Maclean's's modest improvement

The Globe and Mail's fascination with Maclean's continues, today with an article based on the latest circulation data. James Adams has talked to some people in the industry (including me) and concludes that things are looking up for the weekly. Adams cites selling an average of 7,800 single copies per week as one positive, up 51% since the last measurement. But for a magazine that bottomed out

Magazines Canada advertising the power of magazine advertising

Magazines Canada is launching an advertising campaign promoting magazines as an advertising medium. Four versions of the full page ads have been produced, in French and English. The theme is "Make the Connection with Magazines" and is intended to promote the selling power of magazines; it emphasizes the engagement with readers by showing people reading a magazine in typical settings (on a patio,

Torstar acquires The Canadian Immigrant; to launch Toronto edition

Torstar's Star Media Group has acquired the B.C-based monthly The Canadian Immigrant and is planning to launch a Toronto version of the magazine next year. The announcement was made yesterday by Naeem “Nick” Noorani, Publisher, President and CEO of The Canadian Immigrant.The Canadian Immigrant magazine is an important resource tool for those in their first years in Canada.Our mission is to

SkinnyFish to launch western design title

SkinnyFish Media of Calgary (the merger of SkinnyFish Design and the former Calgary Media Group, is launching controlled circulation title called Elemente, according to a story in mastheadonline (sub req'd). Some 20,000 copies of the bimonthly design/architecture publication will drop out of the Globe and Mail and be distributed regionally through Chapters/Indigo. “Influenced by some of the world

What's what in the Heather Robertson case

For those who are still scratching their heads about what, precisely, was the outcome of the decision in the copyright case Heather Roberston et al vs. Thomson Corporation, we should be grateful that the Professional Writers Association of Canada has received permission to reproduce a paper by Warren Sheffer of the firm of Hebb and Sheffer that provides some clarity. Go to the PWAC site and

Canadian Business tallies 100 richest Canadians

Canadian Business has published its seventh edition of the Rich 100 and there are now apparently 46 billionaires in Canada, up 6 from last year. Their total worth -- calculated from a number of sources -- is about $153 billion. Ted Rogers, who owns Canadian Business, has moved up from 7th to 4th position and is worth $4.5 billion.

U.S. magazines are slow to seize web opportunities, study says

Magazines in the U.S. are lagging in terms of seizing online opportunities, at least when compared with newspapers, according to a study reported in MediaDaily News. The study, by a Washington-based public relations company The Bivings Group, studied 50 of the top circulating magazines to assess the degree to which they are using the internet. It says that newspapers are way ahead of major U.S.

Conservative magazines have always had a struggle

There is an almost wistful note to a posting on the blog enterstageright about the failure of Canada to spawn a successful conservative magazine as influential in this country as the National Review was in the United States.Much of the apparent fragility of conservatism in Canada arises from the lack of an intellectual infrastructure outside of various party structures -- and especially of a

The Illusionist 2nd Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer-director Neil Burger about The Illusionist

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PWAC backs Finkle in opposing demand for Baltovich research

The Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC) is supporting Toro editor Derek Finkle in his fight against a court order that he turn over the notes from his book on the Robert Baltovich murder case. Baltovich was convicted of the 1990 murder of his 22-year-old girlfriend, U of T student Elizabeth Bain. The case is being retried after a conviction was overturned by the Ontario Court of

Chris Buck to speak at MagNet conference

The photographer has no obligation to the subject, except not to lie. That's Chris Buck speaking, the bi-coastal (New York, Los Angeles) photographer who is to be this year's international speaker at MagNet, the magazine conference to be held June 13 to 15 in Toronto.Buck, a Canadian expatriate who made good shooting celebrities, grew up in Etobicoke and took photography at Ryerson

Ad-edit guidelines now have magazine industry seal of approval

The Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME) a number of years ago drew up a set of guidelines for the relationship between advertising and editorial pages in Canadian magazines. It was a wonderful initiative by a relatively small organization.In an effort to have an even broader industry consensus, a panel of people from the editorial, advertising and publishing sides have spent the past year

Prose, and everything else, is purple as Open magazine debuts

It gives a whole new meaning to purple prose; the very recent launch of a new magazine called Open which has printed the entire magazine in shades of purple and apparently intends to publish each issue of the quarterly magazine in a theme colour. (Winter's colour is to be white, apparently; would it be quibbling to point out that white is not a colour?)The tagline is [Open] "...to all

Douglas Knight named president of St. Joseph

Douglas Knight, the former publisher of the Financial Post (1992-97) and the Financial Post magazine (1990-92), has been appointed to replace Donna Clark as president of St. Joseph Media. Knight was also publisher and CEO of the Toronto Sun (1997-2000).The announcement comes within days of the departure of Ms Clark, who had been president for just 14 months.A release from St. Joseph says that

Toronto Star media critic Zerbisias has stopped blogging

Antonia Zerbisias, the Toronto Star media critic, set a pace in blogging that apparently couldn't be sustained and has now given it up. Since August Zerbisias (to use her words) "left the building" and hasn't blogged since, except to post one item on the death of her former colleague Sid Adilman. She was among the most prolific and wide-ranging of Star bloggers, often writing more on a subject

Shameless magazine wants to pass the torch

The forthcoming Fall/Winter issue of Shameless, the spunky Toronto-based magazine for teens and young women, will contain a letter from the editors saying that they want to find someone else to take charge of the magazine.Like with many small, specialty magazines in Canada, while publishing it can be a joy, it can also be very hard work, given that so much of your unpaid effort has to go into

Stage left -- Camp BCAMP to take place January 19 to 21

Camp BCAMP, the annual conference for British Columbia Association of Magazine Publishers, will be headlined by Sara Angel, the editor-in-chief of Chatelaine. The keynote address, sponsored by Indas Limited, takes place on Friday January 19, with various panels and sessions taking place on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21st.The whole event takes place at Dunsmuir Lodge in Sidney. For further

Blackflash makes a hard choice, but was it the right choice?

The difficult balance between discretion and censorship, between editorial freedom and board responsibility, between the law and common sense -- these are all apparently in play at Blackflash, the Saskatoon-based photography,electronic and digital art magazine that has published a story with holes in it.The story is about child pornography and according to an excellent summary in the Globe and

Building a buzz in more ways than one, Blackfly takes a bite out of Ontario

Many people talk about starting magazines, but only a few manage it; it's daunting in its details, expensive in its execution and often the talking about it is much more fun than the doing of it. That having been said, it is encouraging to see the emergence of Blackfly magazine, a political quarterly magazine about Ontario.As the centre of the Canadian universe -- at least in terms of population

Little Miss Sunshine Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews screenwriter Michael Arndt about Little Miss Sunshine

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The Mau Mauing of The Walrus?

If you have seen the current cover of The Walrus, you may noted it was created by uber-designer Bruce Mau, who also wrote a story inside (Imagining the Future: Why the cynics are wrong) and is married to Bisi Williams, one of the new directors of the Walrus Foundation. And if you'd been able to score one of the $125 tickets to the Walrus fundraising party last night in Toronto, you were

Donna Clark has resigned from St. Joseph Media

Donna Clark, the president of St Joseph Media, has resigned effective December 1. She was hired in August last year and started at St Joseph in September. Now, with a week's notice and barely 14 months after she started, she is leaving.[UPDATE: Mastheadonline (sub req'd) has published a brief interview with Clark, who says her departure was her choice, for a number of reasons.“I’m at that life

New Malahat Review prize to honour Victoria poet P. K. Page

A $1,000 annual award for poetry will be made by the Malahat Review in the name of well-known and award-winning poet P. K. Page. Ms. Page celebrates her 90th birthday this month and the award will be made to the author of the best poem or sequence of poems published in the previous year in the magazine, which is published at the University of Victoria.The winner of the first award will be

Stick to your guns, live long and prosper

There are those who will say it is just whistling past the graveyard, but a fairly upbeat and hopeful prognosis for magazines was sounded this week by the Guardian media section. The article by Will Hodgkinson acknowledged that there is a bit of a bloodbath in some categories in Great Britain, notably the men's category , for instance, where monthlies spawned weeklies that simply cannibalized

Parachute, one of Canada's oldest arts journals, suspends publication

Parachute, one of Canada's most long-lived magazines about contemporary art, and one distinguished by being published in both English and French, has suspended publication. Founded in 1974, the magazine made its decision because funding levels no longer allowed it to maintain the quality it wanted with the stability it needed. (At right is the first issue of the magazine.)In a release today, the

Sutherland to step down at Western Living

It takes a great deal of gumption to make a major career shift; Jim Sutherland, the editor of Western Living, should be congratulated and wished well on his decision to step down and go back to writing. The announcement was made last week and was reported in mastheadonline yesterday (sub req'd). Sutherland was previously editor of sister magazine Vancouver before joining Western Living in 1999.

Canadian Winter magazine offers cold comfort

"Mon pays..." oops, I was going to break into song, prompted by the impending launch of a cozy new travel/lifestyle magazine called Canadian Winter.It is owned and produced by Griffintown Media, a Montreal-based communications firm that also publishes Canadascope magazine, Canada’s international magazine for the tourism industry, since 2001. Like Canadascope, Canadian Winter has a strong,

Akeelah and the Bee Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer-director Doug Atchison about Akeelah and the Bee

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Jill Foran new editor of Kayak; Ian McKelvie to market Kayak and The Beaver

Major changes at the children's history magazine Kayak, the digest-sized, colourful little sister of The Beaver. Both are published by Canada's National History Society out of Winnipeg. The original editor, Aron Slipacoff and the Art Director, Glenn Toddum, have left after having launched and got Kayak on an even keel (ed: enough of that).The new editor is Calgary author and freelancer Jill Foran

Reader's Digest sold for $2.4 billion

In what is one of the biggest magazine sales in the past decade, Reader's Digest has agreed to be sold to a private equity firm for $1.6 billion, according to a story from Folio: magazine. The buyer is Ripplewood Holdings Inc., founded in 1995 by Tim Collins, the former managing director of Canadian buyout firm Onex Corporation. Ripplewood currently manages five institutional private equity funds

Brand names aren't worth squat without the right attitude

Guess what? Readers don't give a hoot about magazine brands; they want content relevant to their lives presented in a way that's visually appealing. I'm not reading Rolling Stone again because I have fond memories of checking it out while stoned and listening to "Fables of the Reconstruction" during high school; I'm reading it again because it has abandoned its

How things change

A friend sent us a 2003 clipping from the Thunderbird, the student newspaper of the University of British Columbia.Who said this, an excerpt from a review of the first issue of The Walrus?It's a solid enough magazine, but far from fresh. The one truly cool idea in the entire magazine is the illustrated review, humourously executed by Richard Hahn. If they're pushing the big names, then how about

Seeing Canada the Geist way

Geist magazine, which is known and valued for many things, is perhaps most valued by many people for its thought-provoking, often wacky maps that are quirkily revealing about Canada and 50 of these maps have now been gathered together in an atlas published by Arsenal Pulp Press. Many of the maps were created by Melissa Edwards.In its unique way, Geist is offering a subscription to the magazine

Enroute magazine names top new restaurants

Enroute magazine has named the top new Canadian restaurants, according to Canadian Press. They are: Nu (Vancouver)"Nu's menu is a puzzle that fits no matter how you put it together," said contributing editor Chris Johns. "It has stylistic whims and nods to culinary trendiness. The kitchen, while ambitious, isn't afraid of a bit of fun." Capo (Calgary) - "Elegant, luxurious and sophisticated."

The digital side of magazines gets a tax break

Although it has apparently been available to them for some time, magazine publishers in Ontario were today briefed for the first time on the Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit (OIDMTC). It is administered by the Ontario Media Development Corporation and, in a session co-sponsored by Magazines Canada, the rules and regs of the program were outlined.It is available to for-profit magazine

Digital permissions and reprint system to be fronted by Winnipeg firm

Tirage Reprints, a company out of Winnipeg, has cut a deal with online content licensing service iCopyright to manage copyright permissions, sell reprints, and offer other content services to magazine readers. iCopyright, a company founded in 1998 and based in Seattle, Washington, markets a system designed to make it easy for readers to comply with copyright requirements and easy for magazines

Quote, unquote

"I believe the boundaries of freedom of expression seem to be closing in a bit on newspapers and magazines in a way which may not be healthy."-- Sir Christopher Meyer, the chairman of Britain's Press Complaints Commission, quoted in The Guardian. (Sir Christopher is best known for telling tales out of school about his time as ambassador to Washington. His warning was in context with some comments

New job source for those gazing south

Competition in the magazine job board category has heated up a bit, as Folio: and CM (Circulation Management) magazines, from Red7Media of Norwalk, Connecticut, have created a new site called magjobsonline.com. It's not clear whether Canadian publishers/employers will find this a good way to troll for people who want to head north.Job seekers can register to receive e-alerts for particular kinds

Getting paid what you're worth (freelance division)

Interesting item on the Professional Writers Association of Canada blog about advise to freelancers being given by the Canadian Media Guild (CMG). The guild's freelance unit automatically represents and negotiates for all freelancers who do work for the CBC and SRC. Among the tips given in the pamphlet Taking the Free out of Freelance, are:As an experienced freelancer, avoid working for the

National Magazine Awards entries due soon

It's not too soon for magazine editors and contributors to be leafing through their past year's issues and deciding what entries they'll be making to the 30th annual National Magazine Awards. Applications are accepted starting December 1 and must be in no later than January 10. Finalists will be posted on the magawards website by May 1, 2007. If you're particularly feckless, it's helpful to have

OMDC grant recipients

[NOTE This post has been corrected.] The Ontario Media Development Corporation's Magazine Fund has given out 27 grants to magazines, according to its newsletter issued Friday. Masthead magazine (which is a sister publication to one of the grant recipients) has also reported this (sub req'd). No amounts are reported, but recipients are allowed to apply for project support up to $25,000.

Shameless weighs in on slurs against Stronach

Although it seems to be somewhat late in the day, the Shameless magazine blog has posted about the sexist crap that was (and probably is) being dished out to Belinda Stronach, MP. Thea Lim, a frequent contributor to the blog, detailed comments from Peter MacKay, Norman Spector and Ralph Klein and explained the context for the non-Canadian readers of Shameless before saying that she posted not

Subscribers win with e-alerts and downloadable content

It is a truism that online tools can enhance the experience of readers who don't want to give up the many benefits and pleasures of a traditional print publication. What the internet and e-notifications do extremely well is provide enhancements of the experience of being a subscriber. Many magazines offer e-letters (on narrow, vertical topics excerpted from or expanding on the main editorial of

Optimistic Ambrose brings her enthusiasm -- and her Rolodex -- to The Walrus

There is no question that a certain amount of PR was called for* at The Walrus and opening up to the Toronto Star is not a bad way to get some. In the Sunday Star, writer Leslie Scrivener examines the implications and impact of the arrival of Shelley Ambrose as publisher of the magazine and executive director of the Walrus Foundation. While acknowledging that she has no direct magazine experience

Thank You For Smoking Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer-director Jason Reitman about Thank You For Smoking

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Rue Morgue Radio spreads its dark tentacles...

Rue Morgue, Canada's magazine of horror in culture and entertainment, has now partnered with Iceberg Radio to distribute a weekly, dowloadable radio program that is just...um, horrible. Which is what they are driving at. It's a specialty music show that started in 2002 on Rue Morgue's own website and is now to be carried on, and dowloaded from www.icebergradio.com. Horror and music fans can tune

Bonnie Fuller gets meaner to push up sales

Funny, how when newsstand and sub sales soar, Bonnie Fuller credits her own genius with having accomplished it; yet when single copy sales slump, as they have with the tabloid Star, she says the redesign she is launching has nothing to do with it. According to a story in Women's Wear Daily (WWWD):The new elements will be rolled out over the next three to four weeks and will help Star stand out in

This guy says advertising is a public good

Maclean's columnist Andrew Potter moonlights with a guest column published in the Ottawa Citizen (and, presumably, other CanWest papers), making the case for advertising.Just as pollution typically involves the dumping of the byproducts of industrial manufacture into our physical environment, many critics talk of advertising as polluting our "mental environment." In both cases, we are

NOW turns 25

Frankly, we were a bit embarrassed to tell some of our friends that we were starting a business. Marrying a loud, opinionated social consciousness with entrepreneurialism was like going to the dark side in those days. It was funny, but it was uncomfortable back then, too. Right from the start, we got a dose of how it felt to be ahead of our time. And it really hasn’t changed that much.-- Michael

Two art directors, two books, one launch

A launch next Tuesday in Montreal will unveil books by two people who art direct Canadian magazines. Both books are from Insomniac Press.This Will All End in Tears is a graphic novel, five, long-form, illustrated short stories that is said to be "part Charles Schulz, part Edward Gorey" and written by the art director of Ascent magazine, Joe Ollmann. Ascent Canada's leading yoga magazine. (Shown

Guardian editor predicts sunset for classified ads

The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, predicted to an audience of his peers that classified advertising could disappear from newspapers by 2020.Taking part in a panel at the Society of Editors meeting in Glasgow, he said classified adverts from the Guardian print edition were declining by about 9% a year while internet advertising on Guardian Unlimited was growing by about 50% each year -

This Magazine celebrates 40 years of feisty independence

This Magazine is celebrating 40 years of publication -- no mean feat -- with a splashy event on Wednesday night at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. (Attention is being paid in places like Torontoist.)Here's what This says about itself:It is one of Canada's longest-publishing alternative journals. Founded by a gang of school activists in 1966, and originally called This Magazine is About Schools,

How rich publishers get richer; Hearst saves $1 million on prepress

Hearst, one of the U.S.'s biggest magazine publishers, saved about $1 million by streamlining its prepress operations, according to a story in Folio: magazine. (Hearst publishes, among other titles, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Harper's Bazaar, House Beautiful, Marie Claire, O: The Oprah Magazine, Redbook and Seventeen.)It looked at the way things were done down under by Austrialian

Tooting our own small horn

We were having such a busy time posting that we failed to notice as we passed one of those arbitrary mileposts sometime last week with our 1,000th post since the blog began in spring 2005. Currently, each month Canadian Magazines is averaging about 8,500 visitors and about 13,000 page views a month.

Kathy Bergen feted by many friends

An event took place on Sunday that demonstrates the kinds of special bonds that can sometimes be forged in magazines. It was a "tea" held at the Toronto home of Bev Topping for Kathy Bergen the Editorial Director of today'sparent.com, stricken by cancer and honoured by her many friends and associates. Bergen has become well-known for her expertise in online publishing and, before that, as a

Shelley Ambrose named Walrus publisher

The Walrus has a new publisher -- Shelley Ambrose. This, according to a story on Canadian Press and on CBC.ca. Ambrose, who spent the last three years working in public affairs at the Canadian Consulate in New York, was named publisher of the magazine on Monday.[Keep on pitching -- Ambrose is seen at left, pitching for the Canadian team in a baseball league playing in New York's Central Park.]

You guys still don't measure up, say universities

Universities continue to complain about the effrontery of magazines and newspapers passing judgement on their excellence, offerings and courses. Maclean's, of course, is in the bad books of half the universities in the country who are refusing to fill out the detailed questionnaire sent to their administrations. The Globe and Mail is trying to horn in on the territory by developing its own annual

Spacing gets a growing rep for relevance

[Toronto Star photo by Rene Johnston] Left to right, Shawn Micallef, Anna Bowness wih 2-month-old daughter River, writer Dale Duncan, Matt Blackett (in centre holding a button) Holland Gidney, and Dylan Reid.Getting attention paid is a real struggle for small magazines; they cannot afford to advertise and press promotion often seems to elude them. But sometimes, excellence and persistence pays

Little Children Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith Interviews co-writer/director Todd Field about Little Children

Not Currently Available

The return of Tyler Brule. Now, it's serious

Tyler Brule, the Winnipeg-born founder of Wallpaper*, which he launched when he was 27 and soon sold to Time Inc., is to launch a magazine called Monocle in February.Where Wallpaper*'s unique selling proposition for readers was the illusion of hanging out in a lavish pad talking about design and stuff with self-involved international jet-setters, the new magazine is being modelled more after fat

POP! goes the promotion

POP! magazine, which is for kids, is being given away free as a premium to anyone who buys child-related literature from Chapters Indigo during a six-week promotion, according to an item in Media in Canada. POP! is published by Paton Publishing of Missssauga, a division of Torstar. Normally, the colourful title distributes about 250,000 copies three times annually to elementary schools.

Travel issues broaden the mind at Briarpatch

Timed for the start of the winter holiday season, Briarpatch magazine has taken on tourism and there are some thought-provoking, possibly guilt-inducing and consciousness-raising articles in its November issue. Among the contents:They managed to land a high profile lead story by George Monbiot, a very well respected columnist for the Guardian, about the moral implications of travel.There's a

New crop whines from universities that boycotted Maclean's

Now that's rich! The president of Carleton University, one of the original 11 which refused to provide up-to-date data to Maclean's magazines' university issue, now criticizes the magazine for using year-old data. About half of Canada's universities effectively boycotted the rankings and used various strategems to thwart Maclean's's freedom-of-information requests for current data.David Atkinson,

Ad pages in big Canadian consumer magazines jump 6.5% in third quarter

Canada's largest consumer magazines saw the number of ad pages they sold jump 6.5% in the third quarter, compared to the same quarter a year ago, according the Leading National Advertisers data reported by mastheadonline (sub requ'd).

Cosmo India is a heavyweight in more ways than one

The October issue of Cosmopolitan in India weighs almost five pounds and has 1,016 pages. There's grist for your next cocktail party chat. According to a story on the Time.com website, publishing is booming in the country, with 203 million people reading a newspaper every day and new magazines being launched every day. "It's a sunrise moment for Indian publishing," says Mala Sekhri, publishing

Small literary and cultural mags to compete for share of additional funding

Good news for small literary and cultural publications, and possibly to contributors, from the Canada Council for the Arts. Next week (November 9) it will unveil the detailed application process and guidelines to allow it to distributed supplementary payments to arts organizations and individuals. This is made possible by an additional $50 million in increased appropriation announced last spring

Little magazines we like: Penguin Eggs

Even the great and mighty oak was once a nut like me...or lyrics to that effect. I thought I'd bring to the attention of small magazines out there that innovation is a matter as much of will as resources. The example I would give is Penguin Eggs, the quarterly folk and world music magazine published out of Edmonton.There are very few magazines of its size that offer so easy a way for people to

Income trust rule changes will affect magazines

No matter what happens on the financial markets this morning as a result of the government's surprise decision on income trusts (taking away much of their tax advantages) it will impact the magazine industry. As but two examples (some readers may suggest others), consider Rogers Media, which had recently become a partner with Aeroplan, the Air Canada points system, an income trust that was

Universities find subtle and not so subtle ways to thwart Maclean's requests for info

Universities across Canada employed a range of strategems to thwart Maclean's magazine's request for data under freedom of information legislation, according to a story carried by CanWest News Services. This is latest chapter in the struggle between Maclean's and the universities who complain about the methodology in the long-running "universities issue". See previous posts here and here. About

Transcon switches to more robust search capabilities

Transcontinental's aggressive push into multi-media, particularly under the new presidency of Natalie Lariviere, has taken another step as the company adopts a new software environment to get content online. According to an article in ITBusiness,Transcontinental Media Inc. has signed a contract with a Montreal-based developer called Nstein Technologies to start using its Ntelligent Concent

The Look and Fashion 18 are closed

St. Joseph Media has suspended publication of Fashion 18 and The Look after the distribution of their quarterly issues in mid-November. Fashion 18 was a very popular ("The Canadian teen's best girl friend"), but apparently underperforming teen fashion title and it is not altogether clear whether it will carry on as a web-only brand in the way that Elle Girl and other teen titles in the U.S. have.

Jaw-droppingly awful covers...

As good as magazine covers can be, sometimes you have to ask "What were they thinking?". That's certainly the case with a reader-selected batch of cover crimes recently compiled by the Gawker blog. It is certainly a counterpoint to the American Society of Magazine Editors selection of the best.

Pinning down history stories

Here's an example of a creative way of engaging and helping readers at the same time. Canada's National History Society has hired an Education Program Coordinator, Joel Ralph, to develop online newsletters to highlight articles from The Beaver and Kayak and get them into the hands of teachers. Even cooler, however, he is hoping to expand a pilot project he worked on last summer in which, using

Quote, unquote

One of the endearing traits that separate journalists from businessmen is the belief that editorial quality will bring commercial success. Sadly, quality is rarely sufficient. To judge by some profitable publications, it is not even necessary.-- Kim Fletcher, in The Guardian, writing about the UK Press Gazette being put up for sale. (The Press Gazette is like Masthead, but covering newspapers,

Playboy cartoon editor, Winnipeg-born Michelle Urry, dies

Michelle Urry, the Canadian-born cartoon editor of Playboy magazine, has died at the age of 66. Ironically, it was of cancer of the eye.“My feeling about cartoons is that they are truth-tellers,” Urry said in a 2004 interview with the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio. “The better the cartoon, the more truth is in it.”She became Playboy’s cartoon editor in 1972, working with famous and fledgling talents.

Hachette reorganization may have long-range impacts on Canadian market

Tectonic shifts are likely, with the reorganization of Hachette Filipacchi, one of the world's largest consumer magazine publishing companies. According to a story in MediaDaily News, Hachette and its companion company,Lagardère Active (which specializes in digital and mobile media) have been put under the control of a single executive. It's early days, but it's likely that an increased push into

Seeking a young, moderate Muslim audience

A new quarterly magazine aimed at "middle of the road" Muslim youth in Canada has just been launched. Aver was profiled Saturday in a Globe and Mail article by Deirdre Kelly. Aver bills itself as the first "cross-Canada Muslim youth magazine." The first issue has a young woman in hijab and an article inside with one guy's views of hijab. It also has a piece reflecting on "what if" the Dawson

Oh, yeah? You suck, too...

“I notice roadkill too. I wouldn’t call getting run over by a truck a ‘gopher marketing strategy’”.-- blogger GuyZero commenting on Maclean's writer Steve Maich's article saying the internet sucks; the contention that it was merely a clever, and cynical, ploy to court controversy.(If you want to see how the article managed to stir things up in the blogosphere, you could start with Globe

The Celine Dion of Recipes?

Starting a week Monday, English Canada will find a version of the very popular food lifestyle magazine Ricardo on their newsstands. (The French version is shown here.) According to a story in the Montreal Gazette, Ricardo Larrivee is very optimistic about wedging himself into the crowded gourmet food market and sees himself as becoming "the Celine Dion of recipes"A single-name celebrity in

Show us the yummy; trend developing in foodish line extensions

Last May, we reported that Saltscapes magazine of Halifax was going into the restaurant business with a motel chain by opening eponymous eateries around the Atlantic provinces. While that idea hasn't matured, yet, making food and dining a line extension of magazine titles is looking like a trend. According to a story in Marketing Daily:Dennis Publishing's Maxim magazine is to open a chain of

Magazines -- are we cool, or what?

Best-selling marketing guru Rex Briggs says that magazines are the most consistent of all media in delivering both brand awareness and purchase intent. You don't get much better news than that.According to a story in Ad Age, Briggs, the CEO of Marketing Evolution and co-author of the controversial new book What Sticks, told the American Magazine Conference that he set out to determine just

New lawyer job site being cross-examined

Canadian Lawyer and Law Times magazines from CLB Media of Aurora have launched a new job site for lawyers called Jobsinlaw.ca and, already, it is being panned. Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style, a hip new site for young lawyers, says that the new site only has 20 jobs worldwide, and only seven of them are for lawyers. "It’s not bad if you want to work in sales or shipping at Dye & Durham

Saving 36,000 trees

Nineteen Canadian magazines have now moved production over to ancient forest-friendly paper or eco-paper and soon there promises to be 20 and more.Big guys remain cautious because they are in the fashion and shelter categories and feel that it may require compromise on reproduction and image. But bit by bit, publishers are being won over and paper-makers and printers are getting onside. A couple

David Hamilton steps down at Flare; associate publisher Orietta Minatel steps up

One of the worst kept secrets in the business, that David Hamilton, longtime publisher of magazine, would be retiring from Flare magazine has been confirmed. Today, it was announced that, effective in November 1, associate publisher Orietta Minatel steps up. In effect there will be a co-publisher arrangement during the transition, with Hamilton moving over to be a consultant to Rogers Consumer

Barry Blitt wins best cover award from American Society of Magazine Editors

A New Yorker cover by Barry Blitt, a well-known Canadian cartoonist and illustrator who got his start in Toronto and moved to New York in 1989, has won the "cover of the year (best overall)" award from the American Society of Magazine Editors. The cover was a devastating illustration of the denial and paralysis of the Bush administration in the face of Hurricane Katrina. Bush and his cabinet are

Laughter is the best recipe

Every once in a while, it is good fun to see someone on a full-toot, stemwinding rant; for your delectation, I present Larry Dobrow, who occasionally reviews magazines over at MediaPost. Here, he eviscerates a magazine called EAT (from the Meredith Better Homes and Gardens special interest publications group.) Enjoy.

"Canada Post may no longer be an affordable option" -- Gourlay

HALIFAX -- Jim Gourlay, Chair of the Atlantic Magazine Association and a Halifax-based publisher of several magazines including Saltscapes took the lead in speaking to the Commons Standing Committee on Finance, convened in Halifax on Monday, primarily to discuss Canada Post's

Canzine 06 in Toronto this Sunday

Canzine '06 is taking place this weekend in Toronto (last weekend, the East and West versions took place in Halifax and Vancouver). It's at the The Gladstone Hotel,1214 Queen St. West (Queen just East of Dufferin) from 1 to 7 p.m. A $5 admission includes a copy of the latest issue of the magazine about zines, Broken Pencil.There will be readings, workshops, installations and more than 150 zines

ShareOwner magazine celebrates 20 years with a money-making tournament

ShareOwner magazine has been around for 20 years, with a loyal following among people who love to follow stocks with a particular avidity. It is a combination of a publication and a buying club and now, it is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new contest or "tournament", that allows even more of a competitive flutter for readers.The grand prize in the "Double Scoop" tournament is $10,000

Elite global magazines doing well across Europe and The Economist is #1

It bodes well for the forthcoming Guardian Monthly magazine (due out next month) that a recent survey of the top-earning 4% of Europeans indicates that there is a considerable appetite for "international" magazines, according to a story in the UK Press Gazette. The Economist is leading the charge, says the Ipsos-Mori survey of media consumption among Europe's most affluent readers -- it has

Quebecor's TVA loses battle with La Semaine, closes Sensass

Quebecor Media's TVA Publications has shuttered its weekly celebrity glossy Sensass, bested in a "bruising, profit-sapping battle" with rival magzine La Semaine, published by Claude J. Charron. This, according to a story in mastheadonline (sub req'd). TVA launched Sensass in January 2005.Almost immediately after closing Sensass, TVA launched Moi et cie ("Me and my friends"), a fortnightly

Explore wins green award at Folio: show

Explore magazine won the Aveda Environmental Award at the Folio: show in New York on Sunday night. Entrants are judged on how well they incorporate environmental sustainability into their production processes (paper and use, inks, etc.) and/or how well they have improved over the previous year. Explore was a finalist in the under-250,000 circulation category, along with Mother Jones and Watershed

Bank and Profit go together on podcast

A snug relationship between Profit magazine and the BMO Bank of Montreal has resulted in a podcast called Business Coach, written for small business owners by Profit staffers and with commentary by BMO financial analysts and specialists. It will be hosted by Ian Portsmouth (left), Editor and Associate Publisher of Profit, a Rogers business group title.Michael Edmonds, senior manager, media and

Readers in food and travel categories prefer inspirational content of print magazines

Both food and travel magazines are showing staying power because they each offer vicarious and inspirational content that the internet can't or doesn't deliver, according to two stories in MediaDaily News out of the American Magazine Conference."Readers who want to enjoy gourmet meals or get tips on presentation might find more value in the professional photography and high production values of a

U.S. independents tell how they build circ in their own, creative ways

Lots of inspiring stories from MediaDaily News, out of the American Magazine Conference in sunny Phoenix, Arizona:Three independent magazine companies on a panel talked about how they successfully pursued valuable, but elusive, demographics and their stories were remarkably similar for their creative approach, according to a story by Erik Sass. Fabio Freyre, CEO of Latina Media Ventures, David

It's fair to say we're concerned, says Oda

Small comforts must be taken wherever they can be found. For instance, this positive, but somewhat vague response from Heritage minister Bev Oda in response to a question in the Commons last week (Oct. 18) about Canada Post's intention to pull $15 million our of the Publications Assistance Program. She had been asked by Charlie Angus, the New Democrat culture critic, whether Heritage would "step

Esprit de Corps tallies up the true cost of casualties in Afghanistan

Esprit de Corps magazine*, the unofficial, unauthorized magazine of the Canadian armed forces, features a tally in this week's issue of the Canadian casualties in Afghanistan.The article counts 274 casualties -- 43 killed, 231 wounded. They say the bland reports from official sources about "non-life-threatening injuries" of those not killed outright don't tell the whole story."We hear that

Rae uses Maclean's excerpt to extricate himself from his New Democrat past

The Maclean's issue that is on the newsstands today (Monday) and lands in letterboxes across the country over the next couple of days features an exclusive excerpt from Bob Rae's carefully timed book on himself and his views, Canada in the Balance. It is just in time to influence the Liberal leadership race.A few weeks ago, John Geddes of Maclean's wrote of Rae: Choosing a leader isn't about

The Beaver blows its own horn in offbeat TV ad

Not so long ago, The Beaver magazine was fairly dowdy and unadventurous, worthy but not very exciting. Now, having redesigned the magazine thoroughly last year, it is also venturing to tell people about it with a TV ad. The ad is going out to the public this week and with a sense of humour makes the point that the venerable history magazine has something to offer that nobody else has.

Geez to Graham: Bless our enemies

"We don't need the religious leaders backing the bravado of political leaders and military commanders. Maybe religion's role could be more of a unifying force in the world instead of making the divisions even deeper." -- Will Braun, editor of Winnipeg-based Geez Magazine. (He is part of an ad hoc group of Christians distributing leaflets about a "Bless Our Enemies" campaign, in response to the

Caught between two poles

Reaching mass audiences with branding messages will remain important -- that's the good news, according to Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine, quoted in the Real Media Riffs column from MediaPost.The not so good news is that the advertising business is polarizing between the mass market and micro-targeted digital media and traditional print magazines (and newspapers) are being caught (

Toronto Life bash befits 40 years

Toronto Life and St. Joseph Corporation, its parent, know how to throw a bash. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the magazine took over the Carlu in Toronto Thursday night and plied its invitation-only crowd with spectacular food, drink and music. The speeches were short and to the point (including a moving and unusual tribute by John Macfarlane to Clay Felker, the founder of New York and the

Lotsa comment about TV Guide closure

The closure of the print edition of TV Guide is important because of the amount of comment it has engendered, comment which can't help but raise questions about the future of traditional print magazines. Because of TV Guide's profile, there has been a lot of chatter about the decision. Here are some snippets from various places:The Toronto Sun: Barrie Zwicker, a media analyst and publisher of

The Prestige Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews co-writer Jonathan Nolan about The Prestige

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Transcon kills print version of TV Guide magazine and moves it to the web.

Transcontinental Media has given up the struggle and, after 30 years of publishing TV Guide in Canada, the print edition is ending effective with its November 25 issue.TV Guide will "transition to a web publication", according to a memorandum to staff from Francine Tremblay, Senior Vice President of Consumer Publishing. The new site will be tvguide.ca.The irony is that, three years ago, Transcon

U.S. enthusiast titles are hard hit

It's sometimes a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't...magazine publishers have gravitated in recent years to specialized niches because they thought it gave them an edge, but now the very specialized nature of their subject matter and the dimensions of their niche could be working against them, according to a story in MediaDaily News.Enthusiast magazines, particularly those with large

Ya gotta look good for fashion week

Designer duds were required at one of the events of Toronto Fashion Week (this one, a cocktail party hosted by Holt's). Here, courtesy of Canada.com's Jen cam, are (from left to right) Tammy Eckenswiller Fashion Magazine's fashion ed (in Balenciaga), Flare fashion editor Elizabeth Cabral (in Prada) and Tammy Palmer Flare's markets editor (in Zara).

Family Care Solutions debuts,serving the "sandwich generation"

The latest joint venture between Transcontinental Media and the Yellow Pages Group is about to be launched. Some Some 460,000 copies of Family Care Solutions (Savoir Aider) will be distributed on a controlled basis to selected households and piggybacked on the circulation of Canadian Living, Good Times and Bel Age in the Greater Toronto and Greater Montreal area. (It will be available elsewhere

A long time past?

An article about an apparently endangered artifact -- the long-form magazine story -- is published today in The Tyee online magazine. It is the article that originally won Leigh Doyle her National Magazine Award for Best Student Writer.Long-form magazine articles have become scarce in Canadian magazines. Eight thousand words used to be a common length for a feature. Ten thousand words or more was

Mag industry tries to head off Canada Post 's abandonment of the postal subsidy

In what may be a last-ditch attempt to drive home to Ottawa and the Harper government the importance of postal assistance to the Canadian magazine industry, Magazines Canada is embarking on a ramped-up lobbying campaign over the next few weeks, including press briefings, an appearance before the Commons finance committee in Halifax on October 24, an e-mail blitz to MPs and an ad in the Hill

Geoff Dawe takes an extended holiday

Geoff Dawe is taking a 3-month sabbatical from his duties as group publisher of the Kontent Group (FQ, Sir and Inside Entertainment). He told mastheadonline (sub req'd) that it is to travel with his wife Wendy Muller, who recently resigned as head of ad and sales for Google Canada. He is to retain his 50% share in Kontent. The sabbatical is to start Jan. 1.

Gambling on the future: The New Quarterly rounds the 100 issue mark

The award-winning literary, The New Quarterly, based at the University of Waterloo is celebrating 25 years of publication and its 100th issue. They haven't gone crazy, but they have splashed out on a full-colour cover. There's a long and admiring article in the Record newspaper.(Shown are Editor Kim Jernigan, and managing editor Rosalynn Tyo -- photo by Peter Lee, the Record)TNQ was launched with

Quote, unquote

Culture has an altogether different meaning in Paris -- for a start, one is allowed to mention it.Late last month, at Festival America in the Parisian suburb of Vincennes, about 50 writers from across the New World were invited by French publisher Francis Geffard to celebrate "the novel." It was at this convivial first stop on my inaugural book tour that a Canadian diplomat told me of a recent

The Last King of Scotland 2nd Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews co-writer Jeremy Brock about The Last King of Scotland in the 2nd podcast for this film

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Kicking a lady when she's down?

Maclean's columnist Barbara Amiel (Lady Black) continues to exert a fascination in some quarters, apparently. A longish piece in the Daily Mail of Britain, is titled The Fall of the Empress of Excess. In what is mostly a rehash from the clipping files, Amiel Black is described as "a woman whose climb up the social ladder was vertiginous, but who today spends much of her time sequestered in

More open, less dense, with broader appeal

Trust The Onion to take the mickey out of magazines, with this short, slick parody of the rationale many of us have used for one redesign or another.NEW YORK—Melissa Williams, editor-in-chief of Urbis magazine, launched a long-anticipated redesign of herself Friday. "I made a conscious decision to look more open and less dense without losing that smart edge that people have come to expect," said

Learning by doing the Natural Life way

I'm not sure how interesting it is to the readers of Natural Life magazine, but I found it fascinating to read the interview that Rolf Priesnitz, the publisher, put up on the Natural Life website. His wife Wendy is the editor, and presumably asked the questions.The interview's candour and its down-to-earth common sense would be terrifically useful to anyone who publishes or wants to publish a

Robertson wins groundbreaking freelance suit after more than a decade of struggle

“The central issue on this appeal is whether newspaper publishers are entitled as a matter of law to republish in electronic databases freelance articles they have acquired for publication in their newspapers — without compensation to the authors and without their consent. In our view, they are not."With those words, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled (go here for the complete judgement) that

MagNet officially launched and hopes to attract the whole industry

[NOTE: A comment has been posted from the President of the National Magazine Awards Foundation saying it is not a partner in MagNet. Click on comments, below.]MagNet has been launched, a joint venture of Magazines Canada, the Circulation Management Association of Canada, the Professional Writers Association of Canada [and the National Magazine Awards Foundation].The new industry conference, to be

Walrus tops up its board

The Walrus Foundation has filled the board seats vacated by a slew of resignations recently, according to a story in Mastheadonline (sub req'd). The new board members are:Mark Kingwell, University of Toronto philosophy professor and writer; Allan Gregg, pollster (and frequent Walrus contributor) ;Helga Stephenson, former executive director of the Toronto International Film Festival, and now

Oh yeah? Says who?

The antagonism between Maclean's and the universities it says it wants onside for its Universities Issue doesn't seem to cooling off; in fact, Tony Keller, the Managing Editor, Special Projects, seems in a fairly combative mood. The tone of his "Uniblog" seems somewhat surprising coming from Maclean's. His choice of language is sometimes a bit over the top, too, at least if they truly want to

C magazine new look

The new look of C magazine is now available, designed by Antonio De Luca in collaboration with Brian Morgan. It will be launched officially tonight at a party at Bar Italia in Toronto and on a newsstand near you soon.

Monkey business from publishers of Maxim

If you're a Canadian publisher aiming at the young male market (16 - 30), it's enough to ruin your day. Dennis Publishing, the creators of Maxim, are launching a free, weekly online magazine called Monkey starting November 1. That's online, and free, as in available to anyone.Dennis has already demonstrated that it understands and knows how to serve the limited attention spans of young males with

Broadcaster starts weekly broadcast (but you have to go get it)

Broadcaster magazine, the trade publication for the radio, television and pay/specialty industries, is launching a free weekly podcast. Every Wednesday there will be a downloadable interview with a well-known expert or personality from the industry. The interviews are prepared and presented by David Bray, the senior vice-president of Hennesey and Bray Communications. It's the latest

Decision to come, at last, in Robertson suit against Globe

Word is that on Thursday morning, at long last, the decision will be handed down at the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of Heather Robertson et al v. Thomson Corporation. (Thanks to the PWAC site for alerting us to this.) A useful summary of the case is available from the Supreme Court website. Robertson's suit was turned into a class action, and so represents the interests of any and all

Rumours falls flat

It was an hour I will never get back. Rumours premiered on CBC-TV Monday night. Back-to-back half hours, purporting to be a situation comedy about working on a women's magazine. Adapted from a Quebec original. Produced by Moses Znaimer. Absolute crap.

Independent Ready Made swallowed by Meredith

Meredith Corporation, the Better Homes & Gardens publishing behemoth, has purchased the boutique Berkeley, California-based magazine Ready Made, according to a report in Media Bistro.Ready Made describes the magazine (which went from quarterly to 6-times a year in 2004) as being "for people who like to make stuff, who see the flicker of invention in everyday objects -- the

Another new lifestyle magazine: Luxe to be launched

Yet another, newspaper-delivered, high end upscale magazine is being launched, this time by Metamedia Capital Corporation. It is called Luxe and it claims to be distributing 65,000 copies an issue, 12 times a year in the National Post, starting October 26. The release announcing the new magazine is peculiar in its language and syntax and raises more questions than it answers about the genesis of

C magazine gets a makeover

C magazine, the edgy contemporary artistic cousin of the Canadian art publishing scene, has been redesigned and the new look is being unveiled on October 11. (Illustrated is the spring issue -- not the new look fall issue.) The new look has been created by Antonio de Luca of Open, Inc. De Luca is best known these days as the creative director of The Walrus. The launch party starts at 8 p.m.

All The King's Men Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews Writer-Director Steve Zaillian about All The King's Men

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Thinking about magazine legend Clay Felker

It is not good news to hear that Clay Felker, the man who virtually invented the city magazine when he started New York magazine, is in a bad way. Forbes magazine reports that Felker, who has been struggling with cancer, has now moved into a New York City nursing home. Almost all magazine editors owe a debt of gratitude to Felker for his innovation and his vision. James Brady writes a nice

Toronto Life to celebrate 40 years

Toronto Life is holding a big celebration this month to mark 40 years in business. The bash is being held at the Carlu at Yonge and College in Toronto on October 19. (My invitiation must be in the mail.)Michael de Pencier, the chair of Key Publishers, bought the struggling society magazine for a buck in 1972 and turned it into one of Canada's best-known and consistently most successful magazines.

Sharing the wealth of knowledge

Canadian Gardening magazine's website has a number of nice features, but the most generous is its highlighting of the "site of the month", pointing its readers to other, interesting websites in the gardening world. This month (October), they've put the spotlight on the weblog Garden Rant and its three co-founders, Amy Stewart, Michele Owens and Susan Harris."

How low can they go?

"As for prices, they are just insanely low." So says SmartCanucks.ca, a website devoted to finding deals. And they were referring to the rates that are being offered to Rogers cable subscribers for Rogers magazines under the Reader's Advantage program:Maclean’s - $2.00/month i.e. $0.50/issue!Canadian Business - $1.00/monthChatelaine - $1.00/monthMoneySense - $1.00/monthToday’s Parent - $1.00/

Who tells who gets what? You do

Masthead magazine annually compiles the results of a salary survey. While it is not scientifically valid in that it is self-selecting and not taken from a genuine random sample, it is still one of the best and only sources of such information available. It can be made even more so if enough people on Canadian magazines take the time to fill out the easy questionnaire; either the one that came

Out from behind the pay wall

A chink in the pay wall at the Globe and Mail? The launch today of globesports.com means that the likes of Stephen Brunt, Eric Duhatschek, Dave Shoalts, indeed all of the Globe sports columnists, are henceforth available free, to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Even the Globe trumpeted on its sports front that they were "coming out from behind the pay wall".Previously a fee had to be paid

Fall Submission Period Open

We are now reading for LIT 13. We will read submissions until December.

Please send previously unpublished poetry, fiction and non-fiction to

LIT
Writing Program
New School University
66 West 12th Street, Room 514
New York, NY 10011

Poetry: 3-6 poems, or 10 pages of poetry
Fiction & Non-Fiction: no more than 25 double spaced pgs.

Please do not submit more than once per reading period. Response time is 3-6 months. Include SASE for response. Simultaneous submissions welcome, but please inform us immediately if a piece is taken elsewhere.

But can they spell Maisonneuve?

Maisonneuve magazine is holding a spelling bee. I'm a sucker for spelling bees. Teams of 3, of any age, can compete for gift certificates from Nicholas Hoare, Maisonneuve's funky boxsets and some airplay on CBC (the bee is hosted by News at 6's Michel Godbout. Regrettably, this is only in Montreal. Saturday, October 21st, 3:00pm - 5:00pm, Grande Bibliotheque Nationale du Quebec, 475 de

Sunset for the flyer?

For now, it is just a streamer in the wind. But if the chatter in New York is anywhere close to the truth, a cataclysmic change may be coming in printed media -- the decline of flyers and free-standintog inserts in newspapers. On top of declines in classified and the apparent flight of ad dollars to the online realm, it would be serious bad news for beleagured publishers.This may seem somewhat

New inflight magazine to launch in the Yukon

A new inflight magazine, with a circulation of approximately 20,000, is to be launched in Yukon in February. The quarterly is being produced for Air North by Harper Street Publishing and is called Yukon Magazine, North of Ordinary. It will be distributed on flights between Whitehorse, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Dawson City, Fairbanks and Inuvik as well as hotel rooms. The February 1 launch

Dating service starts online magazine

Lavalife, the humongous online dating service, is launching an online magazine about...dating. "Lavalife Magazine is designed to foster a sense of community among singles," said Kim Hughes, the Editor in Chief. The magazine's tag line is "Dating, Life & Style".Weekly feature articles will include such items as "A History of Sex Toys" to the heavy "Dating after the Death of a Partner" to the

Martha's magazine turns 15

Martha Stewart Living celebrated 15 years of publishing this weekend, with herself in attendance at a show on Pier 94 in Manhattan. According to a story in the Daily News, the only people mentioning her recent stretch in federal prison for lying about a stock trade were her adoring fans, and then only because it made them love her more: "The lady has panache. I think she rocks," said Janette

Turning up the heat and vitriol in the Afghan issue

Scott Taylor, the editor of Esprit de Corps, the independent magazine for the Canadian Armed Forces, has written a column saying that some of the most fervent supporters of the war in Afghanistan have forgotten why Canadians are fighting there in their zeal to demonize anyone who thinks that the troops should be brought home. His column appeared in the Halifax Chronicle Herald newspaper."These

Become creative crew for a cushy cruise

Thanks to a tip, we were directed to this somewhat odd entry on the website of The Beaver, the magazine published by Canada's National History Society out of Winnipeg (which, come to think of it, is about as far from an ocean as you can get in Canada). Not presented as an advertisement, but more of a news item, it appears in the part of the website devoted to news about its authors and

Word watch: goodbye "media agency", hello "communications services"

There are few better signs of the changing media environment than when someone changes the name of what they do. Ad agencies became media agencies, and now media agencies are re-dubbing themselve "communications services", according to an item in MediaPost.While there is confusion on where creative agency role stops and media agencies' role starts, the media buying role isn't going away, just

Blanket coverage

It's probably not the first time it has happened, but Torontoist pokes a little fun at the two night-out Toronto giveaway mags eye and NOW for having the same cover subject this week. Not a major event like the Toronto film festival, mind you, but "Nuit blanche", whatever that is. As one reader noted, acidly, it is driven by who gets free tickets. Or it is a sign that there is a killer publicist

Quote, unquote

"What's interesting is that in all the places where I had a lot of fun, I also had a lot of anxiety. In this business, they go hand in hand."-- Former Newsweek Editor Edward Kosner who has just published a memoir "It's News to Me: The Making and Unmaking of an Editor," (Thunder's Mouth Press)

The day old bread discount and other variable pricing

Magazines usuallly have a hard enough time getting their current issue in front of the public through the byzantine maze of the single copy sales network. Often, we don't give a thought to the fact that, in many instances, back issues of the magazine have untapped potential. I was prompted to think about this by a presentation this week to a group of "creative industries" types in Toronto (part

The Last King of Scotland Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews director Kevin Macdonald and actor James McAvaoy about The Last King of Scotland

Not Currently Available

Green Living Enterprises to launch chic Eco Options

Since he sold most of his Key Publishers assets to St. Joseph Corporation in 2002 Michael de Pencier has not been standing still. He has been building a portfolio of "green" ventures. At first, it was Investco Capital Corporation, private equity funds that invest in wind power, organic foods and water purification projects.Then it was Green Living Enterprises, with a shift back into publishing

Magazines eligible for Creative Cluster Fund launched in Ontario

October 27 is less than a month away, but it's the deadline for the first round of the new funding source from the Ontario Ministry of Culture (administered by the Ontario Media Development Corporation). The OMDC held the first of three information sessions yesterday and is hosting two more today to outline the criteria and the details of the Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships

Canadian Business partners with interior design awards program

It's hard to know how tight is too tight when it comes to media sponsorships and partnerships, but they are becoming a vital marketing tool for many Canadian magazines. Canadian Business magazine, for instance, is certainly cementing its relationship with a number of industry groups. It is a sponsor and partner for the nation's largest interior design trade show and its awards for booth and

Print is harder to sell as essential, exec tells New York magazine audience

If you think print advertising is enough, think again, says Robin Steinberg svp and director of print investment at Publicis Groupe's MediaVest. She told a packed New York Times auditorium (according to a story in AdWeek) Tuesday morning that pressure is mounting on magazines to offer advertisers multiplatform packages that tie-in to the Web, mobile and other appropriate digital media.To

People read what they like, and sometimes it is in a doctor's office

It ain't what you do, it's the way what you do it; as apparently true in magazine reading as in other aspects of life, at least according to a paper published by the Magazine Publishers of America. The paper can be found at the MPA website and was summarized in a report in MediaPost's Center for Media Research.The Value of Magazine Readership study is an update, pulling together new information

House & Home expands reach on U.S. HGTV

The doyenne of Canadian House & Home magazine, will have her television show, House & Home with Lynda Reeves, on the screens of the House and Garden TV in the U.S. starting October 7. According to a story in mastheadonline (sub requ'd) . The popular program, which makes a powerful one-two marketing punch with the very prosperous magazine, is already seen daily on Global Television in Canada and

Hey, ho! We're not called "Glamour" for nothing

From the blog Gawker (thanks to Barb Adamski for the tip):British Glamour editor Jo Elvin was shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that for an upcoming piece about women who had lost their husbands in Iraq or Afghanistan, a freelancer named Victoria Lambert sent an email to members of Military Families Against the War looking for "photogenic" case studies. The email read: Glamour is very

It's small, but I like what you've written about it

Dynamic Resource Group (DRG) in Berne, Indiana, will begin publishing a new bi-monthly magazine in mid-January called Town Square, which will circulate in the United States and Canada to celebrate life in small towns. It will be almost entirely reader-written.Who, you may well ask, is DRG? It is a well established, family publishing and printing company that operates somewhat below the radar of

Cottage Life and British Columbia clean up at IRMA Awards

Canadian titles did very well at this month's 46th annual International Regional Magazine Association (IRMA) conference on Sept.12, 2006 in Duluth, Minnesota. Cottage Life won 10 awards, including three golds. British Columbia Magazine won six awards, including two golds. The IRMA awards recognize international standards of editorial excellence among more than 40 regional -- largely tourism and

Quote, unquote

It's easy to sniff at purveyors of puffery like Hello!, lamenting our obsession on the rich, famous, pampered and beautiful. But interested we are, and Hello! does it better than most. You like the idea of Canadians appearing in the big blender, which we try to do in newspapers every day. This isn't for everyone -- not me, for one, or most of my friends of all ages. But good wishes are due just

The Science of Sleep Video Q&A Part 1

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer/director Michel Gondry about The Science of Sleep part 1

Not Currently Available

The Science of Sleep Video Q&A Part 2

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer/director Michel Gondry about The Science of Sleep part 2

Not Currently Available

The Science of Sleep Audio Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer/director Michel Gondry about The Science of Sleep

Not Currently Available

Come on in, the water's fine

Folio: the magazine for magazine management, has launched a blog called Folio: Forum, which looks remarkably like what Canadian Magazines has been for the past year. Good idea. Glad we thought of it first!

We're OK, it's OK, say Walrus principals

Mastheadonline has published a longish item on The Walrus, which may, or may not, allay people's angst about what's going on. Ken Alexander expands on his view that the departure of the Publisher and several directors and the deputy editor is a good and necessary thing. Publisher Bernard Schiff says he left because of too many disagreements on fundraising and other fundamentals. Departed Deputy

Time Inc. special interest titles may fetch US$400 million

Word on the street in New York is that the Time4Media properties (18 special interest magazines that Time Inc. has put up for sale) could fetch between US$300 million and US$400 million. It's also expected that frontrunners to pick them up are Europeans who have the leverage of the strong euro. This according to a column in the New York Post. The titles in play include Field & Stream, Outdoor

Quote, unquote

"Magazines are growing in stature in Canada, demanding an ever-increasing readership and media market share, despite heavy competition from south of the border-and regional titles have been demonstrating the strongest growth curve."Canadians are magazine readers. "Maybe it's the climate. Consumer magazines, in particular, and regional business magazines,engage audiences emotionally and

When in doubt, Helvetica

A mature magazine designer of my acquaintance said once: "When in doubt, Helvetica." (This has echoes of someone else who told me: "When in doubt, Mozart.")Helvetica is a feature length documentary by Gary Hustwit about one of the most ubiquitous and popular typefaces in the world and its impact on global, visual culture. Here is a story about it in Aiga: Journal of Art & Design. The film

Cameron Williamson to be art director of Chatelaine

Chatelaine, which seems to take its sweet time filling key editorial positions, has finally named an art director, according to a story in mastheadonline (sub requ'd). It is Cameron Wiliamson, who was creative director at Toro. Chatelaine editor Sara Angel met Williamson when the two worked at Saturday Night (she as features editor, he as an intern).

Flare creates one-off Canada Style book to celebrate trend-setters

Flare magazine is to publish a special issue that celebrates Canadian fashion trend- and style-setters. It's called Canada Style and will be polybagged with Flare's November issue, available starting October 16. The special 84-page bonus magazine is sponsored exclusively by advertiser P&G Beauty.In a news release, Lisa Tant, the editor-in-chief, says: "We've packed even more news and great finds

Postal subsidy and mag fund in serious jeopardy

Magazines Canada has asked its member publications to send letters to their Members of Parliament concerning worry about the very real possibility that the longtime Publications Assistance Program (the postal subsdidy that is now administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage)and funding to the Canada Magazine Fund may be terminated.In a members' bulletin, CEO Mark Jamison said:All

Well-heeled also well-read

Among affluent Americans (and this usually goes for Canadians, too), consumer magazine readership is as healthy as it has ever been, according to the Mendelsohn Affluent Survey, an annual study investigating the habits of Americans with income exceeding $85,000 a year. This, from a story in MediaDaily News. There were major increases for publications that specifically target the well-to-do, with

Rogers buys Canadian Parents Online

Rogers Publishing has taken over the website CanadianParents.com for an undisclosed price. Rogers owns Canada's largest parenting group including the magazine Today's Parent and its associated website, Todaysparent.com. Tracy Keleher, the founder and business development manager for Canadian Parents Online will continue to manage the standalone site with its existing staff (there is no suggestion

Are the wheels coming off The Walrus?

Serious doings apparently afoot at The Walrus magazine. Last week, Tom Fennell, the deputy editor, quit. This was followed by the resignation of Bernard Schiff, the publisher and also chair of the Walrus Foundation; he was followed out the door by most of the rest of the board (it's not clear how many or if the board quit en bloc) including Sandy Houston, who represents the Metcalfe Foundation

A whole new meaning for sell-through

Thanks to the Professional Writers Association of Canada blog for making us aware of an intriguing initiative being taken by Boing Boing, a blog that has, er, a much larger audience than does this one. The Boing Boing Digital Emporium is a pilot project to post certain texts in pdf form that can be downloaded for a small fee [similar to Apple's i-Tunes -- see the comment below].This would seem to

Spacing gets serious about election

We don't know whether other, local or city, magazines have done something similar, but it's impressive that Spacing magazine has launched an election blog and deployed a clutch of reporters to cover the issues across the city of Toronto. Well-known freelancer (Globe, Toronto Life) John Lorinc is writing a column for the blog, which will be up until the November 13 municipal vote.

Gloves off, Maclean's's request for university info has turned into a demand

Maclean's magazine, facing the danger of seeing one of its premier cash cows, the universities issue, downed because the recalcitrance of many of the country's largest universities, has issued freedom of information requests to get the data it needs to compile the rankings. (Some earlier posts here and here and here; scroll back for others.)This is yet another escalation in a continuing story

Libin leaves Western Standard editorship

Days after unveiling the total redesign of the Western Standard, Kevin Libin, the editor of the Western Standard, announced he was leaving, to join the National Post as its Alberta correspondent. This, according to a story in mastheadonline (sub req'd)."Succeeding Libin is Joe Woodard, a well-known religion reporter and faith editor at the Calgary Herald. Woodard is also a founding member of the

Like the telephone, it works

Charlotte Gray's biography of Alexander Graham Bell (Reluctant Genius:The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell, HarperCollins), received reviews this weekend both in the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. Michael Smith in the Star noted in his review that Bell may have been the inventor of something besides the telephone:Now I think of Bell as the inventor of one of the

MUM says it's not dead; it was resting

Masthead online reports (sub req'd) that the Montreal-based men's magazine MUM (Men's Ultimate Magazine), which folded after seven issues back in 2003, is being revived, this time as a quarterly. Founder Hung Le says he's older and wiser (he's now 25!). We are left to wonder if MUM stands for Make Up (Your) Mind. It's hard to see how it is distinguished from or will distinguish itself from UMM (

Strong $ nibbles Transcon's 3rd Q profit

Third quarter results for Transcontinental Inc. have been released; the printer, magazine and media company (TSX:TCL.B) saw third-quarter profit fall from $27.5 million last year at this time to $24.7 million, mostly blamed by management on the impact of a strong Canadian dollar. According to the company, revenue totalled $511.8 million, down $18 million or three per cent from $529.8 million in

A new title on mastheads?

Prevention magazine, the long-established health and fitness digest book from Rodale Inc. has established a wholly new job and job description at its shop -- brand editor. According to a story in MediaDaily News, Leah McLaughlin, formerly executive editor of Natural Health has been hired to the lead as the magazine develops brand extensions across all media--print, Internet, broadcast, DVDs and

Dialing for dollars

Sometimes new magazines come about by the most roundabout ways. Sometimes you wonder whether they are really magazines at all.This particular publication, just announced, is called Dialed In, and it started with a cell phone ringtone. The music magazine is to be distributed to some 1,600 high schools across the country. According to an article in Hour.ca, Dialed In aims to become the first truly

Time Inc. to divest 18 special interest titles

Time Inc. is going to put 18 of its consumer magazine up for sale, including some of its older special interest titles such as Popular Science, Field & Stream and Outdoor Life, as well as its Parenting Group, including the very big title, Parenting, according to a story in Media Daily News. According to the latest FAS-FAX from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), Popular Science experienced

Cheap at twice the price

Apparently some publishers no longer care quite so much about maintaining a subscription price of at least a dollar a copy.13 issues of Chatelaine and 10 issues of LouLou ... all for one low price of $14.95 -- that's just $0.65/copy.Perhaps PAP funding just doesn't have the cachet it used to have. Or perhaps Rogers is rolling in mountains of moolah, so they can afford to charge readers less ...

Veteran magazine writer and author Edna Staebler dies at 100

Edna Staebler a woman who started her career as a freelance magazine writer in the heyday of Maclean's, Chatelaine and Saturday Night in the '40s, '50s and early '60s and went on to write 20 books, including two of Canada's bestselling cookbooks, has died at the age of 100.For many years she lived in a cottage beside Sunfish Lake, near Waterloo and held court for visitors from all over the world.

New title for parents enters a crowded field

The parent/family category will be somewhat more crowded, and competitive, with the launch this March of ParentsCanada magazine, from Family Communications. It will be going up against (among others) national titles like Rogers's Today's Parent and St. Joseph's recently relaunched Canadian Family.Family Communications claims in a story in Media in Canada, that 70% of Canada's eight million

A supportive word

Maclean's magazine, somewhat beset by a mob of university presidents falling over themselves to say how they will no longer cooperate with its university rankings, has heard at least one, somewhat unlikely, friendly word. In an editorial, the London Free Press chides the universities (including London-based Western). While it agrees there may be flaws in the methodology, it says "reasonable

Big print distributor cuts deal with digital distributor

Interesting item from Media Daily News concerning a partnership between traditional newsstand disributor Kable Distribution Services and the digital publication distributor Newsstand Inc. It seems to involve Kable providing access to its print clients and selling digital subs as one of several alternatives, while Newsstand does all the digital fulfillment. The two companies will share any of the

Western Standard get design makeover

The Western Standard of Calgary has gone to one of Canada's most reliable and steady art direction hands, Jim Ireland & Associates, to help it redesign the newsmagazine from front to back. The whole new look will hit the newsstands with the September 25 issue. Here is a sneak peek.Gone is the blocky red logo box up in the corner, replaced with a bold upper and lower logo emphasizing the word "

Corporate Knights editor and founder profiled

Toby Heaps, the editor of Corporate Knights magazine, was profiled this weekend by the Toronto Star's Judy Steed. Whether you classify his publication a noble pursuit of positive corporate values or as a tool of the corporatist agenda, there is no question that the magazine has grown, prospered and is worth watching. Now published six times a year with a controlled circulation of roughly 100,000

But Wait! There's More!

It's off topic, but interesting nonetheless. The man who claimed to have invented the advertising catch phrase: "But Wait! There's More!" and who wrote the copy for the ginsu knife, has died.

Rogers merges trade publishing divisions

The recent retirement of Harvey Botting from leading Rogers's trade publishing arm, the Business Information Group, left a big management hole. That has now been filled by merging the division with the Health & Financial Group, to create the Business & Professional Publishing Group. John Milne (who ran the health and financial group) has been promoted to senior vice-president of Rogers Media

Try them, you'll like them -- MPA gives free magazines to college students

A story in Folio: says the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) is working with Zinio Systems, the digital distribution company, to get U.S. college students to read magazines. Its method? To give away free digital subs to select students at various universities. The MPA's Digital College Initiative. "The magazines will reflect the curriculum being studied in specific departments...and involve

Spacing mixes it up for municipal election

Spacing, the prize-winning little Toronto magazine, run part-time by Matthew Blackett and a bunch of dedicated urbanophiles, certainly punches well above its weight when it comes to participating in the forthcoming municipal election in Canada's largest city.We like the illustration they used by artist Mark Ngui (see above). Spacing's new issue, due out September 18, will concentrate on the

Canadian writer for harness racing trade magazines to be inducted into Hall of Fame

Marie Hill, originally from Black's Harbour, N.B., is to be inducted into Communicators Hall of the Harness Racing Hall of Fame, according to Standardbred Canada. Hill, who had her first writing byline at age 11, has covered harness racing for major trade magazines, but she is best known in the sport as a prolific author, writing about racehorse-stallion star Adios, fellow native Canadian Joe

Stefano & Pileggi Video Podcast

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith Interviews Joseph Stefano and Nicholas Pileggi at the WGA 101 Best Screenplays Event

Not Currently Available

Stefano & Pileggi Audio Podcast

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith Interviews Joseph Stefano and Nicholas Pileggi at the WGA 101 Best Screenplays Event

Not Currently Available

A world of troubles at Canadian Geographic

People in the business have always looked up to Canadian Geographic, as a robust mid-sized title in a country with few of them, as an excellent and prize-winning magazine and as a real publishing success story.Hence the dismay and puzzlement when, last Friday (September 1), seven people, including a couple of senior and longtime employees, were abruptly terminated Among them were Ian McKelvie,

So close, it could be In Touch with first place

In Touch magazine's goal in life is to become the number one newsstand title, and it looks like it is within casting distance, according to a story in Women's Wear Daily (WWD). The two celebrity titles that went toe-to-toe used to be People and US Weekly, but Bauer's In Touch has moved into second place and is breathing down People's neck, says the story."For example, the Aug. 21 issue saw In

Caroline Connell promoted to be Editor in Chief of Today's Parent

Caroline Connell has been promoted to Editor-in-Chief of the Today’s Parent Group effective September 18, 2006. The Today’s Parent Group includes Today’s Parent magazine, Todaysparent.com and the special editions—Today’s Parent Pregnancy & Birth, Today’s Parent Newborn and Today’s Parent Baby & Toddler magazines. (She replaces Linda Lewis, who moved to Transcontinental to edit More, its

Ryerson piles on to Maclean's

Ryerson University is the latest to refuse to cooperate with the Maclean's magazine university rankings. That brings the total schools to 23 (we're beginning to lose count), including most of the biggest universities in the country. Maclean's insists it will carry on, but it must be asked whether this is whistling in the dark and whether the study will have any credibility with the public when it

Murray Lewis to be editor of Good Times, relocated in Montreal

According to a post in mastheadonline (reg. requ'd) Murray Lewis, until recently the editor of Our Canada, the largely reader-written offshoot of Reader's Digest, is to be the editor of Good Times, the English language version of Le Bel Age which has been relocated to Montreal by its parent company, Transcontinental Media. The Toronto team which has been producing Good Times has been let go.

The lure of the golden west

CanWest Mediaworks has published an advertorial magazine that extols the virtues of the job-rich (or is that worker-poor?) western Canada, trying to lure Atlantic Canadians to move on out. A story on CBC.ca says that Move West, a 52-page insert in CanWest newspapers, contains ads for jobs ranging from oil patch engineer to coffee pourer, and stories about easterners who have moved west.Atlantic

Cool (and worthwhile) new subscription marketing ploy?

Whether it's primarily a circulation ploy or A Good Thing (they say it's both), I like the idea of US-based GOOD Magazine's fundraising drive / subscription offer: You gotta pay $20 for a subscription, but all of that money will go to the worthy cause you select.On the "Why are we doing this?" page, they point out that most magazines don't make money off paid circulation anyway, so why bother

Guardian plans monthly magazine

Guardian Newspapers Limited, which publishes the daily Guardian newspaper, the Guardian Weekly and the Sunday Observer, is now to launch an international monthly magazine from the end of the year called Guardian Monthly. It was reported in the U.K. Press Gazette, although there have been broad hints for months.It is to be edited by former Independent journalist Jessica Moore (pictured) and will

Broadcaster Kevin Shea named OMDC chair

For those in the magazine industry who feel that the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) is too focussed on film, television, or any cultural industry other than magazines, then it won't be welcome news that Kevin Shea, a broadcaster to the bone, has been appointed as the new chair.Shea is owner and president of SheaChez Inc., a consulting firm whose clients include the CBC, Telus

Education exemption to copyright law a terrible idea says Geist

Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has some stern words about the so-called "education exemption" for copyright. It appeared in the Law Bytes column that he write for a number of outlets, including the Toronto Star and later posts on his website. Geist is a frequent commentator on internet law and copyright issues.He points out

Xerox announces paper that's 25% lighter

For those very short-run magazines that can economically use high-grade photocopying rather than offset printing, there comes news through Folio: that Xerox has announced it has created a coated paper that is 25% lighter than any previously available.Xerox said it is the industry's lightest and delivers 20 per cent more pages per inch of paper than the next lightest digital paper on the

Chocolat preview

Chocolat, the joint venture between Rogers Media and Canada Post, is previewed tonight (Wednesday) at a press bash at the tony, uptown furniture store Art Shoppe. The invited VIPs and press will see the first issue, which appears on newsstands September 12.In a release, publisher Kerry Mitchell, vice-president of Rogers Consumer Publishing, says: "We're very excited about introducing Chocolat to

Ambitious young editors find a place to network at Ed2010

One of the things that makes working in this business such a pleasure is being around friendly, funny, ambitious young people who believe in what they're doing. There may be some awful sourpusses in the business, but it's generally a pretty vibrant place. Case in point is an intriguing and enjoyable website called Ed2010 (that's Ed twenty-10). It's overwhelmingly U.S.-focussed, but it has a

Will these become known as the "foodies"?

The winners of the inaugural Cuisine Canada Food Media Awards will be announced on Sept. 18 in Winnipeg, from more than 50 entries in the various classes of visual and writing. The one sure thing is that well-known Canadian magazines will win.The awards are part of the Cuisine Canada national conference Sept. 16 to 19. (For a number of years, this conference had been called Northern Bounty but

The college of allergic knowledge

Allergic Living magazine's fall issue features the travails and surprises in store for students going off to college and taking their allergies with them.

Star PM debuts

The Toronto Star's mini-paper Star PM debuted this afternoon, with few surprises. It comes as an 8-page 8.5 x 11 printable pdf and free subscribers can opt for additional sports, people, lifestyle and "youth culture" pages, for a total of 12. No one knows yet how popular it will be, or whether it is one more marker on the road to the end of paid newspapers. But one question that has been raised:

Is the ratebase doomed?

“The rate base is really just an anachronism,” said Rebecca McPheters, who is president of McPheters & Co., a consulting and research firm. “The value to the advertiser is not the number of copies or how they are paid for or distributed, but rather who reads it and who buys the advertiser’s product. It would be a very brave thing for Time to do and would be an exciting development for the

"Sock puppet" incident embarrasses The New Republic, loses blogger his job

Lee Siegel, a senior editor at The New Republic (partly owned by the Aspers) and creator of the Lee Siegel on Culture blog for TNR.com, was suspended indefinitely from the magazine and his blog was shut down after revelations that he was involved in anonymously attacking readers who criticized his posts. This, according to a story in the New York Times."...a reader accused him of using a “sock

Esprit de Corps editor says defence minister was way off base

Scott Taylor, the editor-in-chief of the iconoclastic military magazine Esprit de Corps, has taken a strip off the Canadian defence minister, Gordon O'Connor for remarks he made last week to Canadian troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan. O'Connor justified the mission to Afghanistan and lit into the media for emphasizing casulaties and combat rather than reconstruction activities. Taylor, who wrote

Macleans slaps back

Well, Maclean's came out swinging this week in reaction to news that more than 20 Canadian universities (about one-fifth) have made statements saying they would no longer cooperate with the long-time universities issue. (Earlier posts can be found here and here.)The "letter from the editors" (which may be taken as the views of the Editor & Publisher, Ken Whyte) published in this week's magazine,

Onward and upward into the new year

One year ago, this little blog had fewer than 1,000 unique visitors a month. Now, it has more than 6,000. (OK, so it's no YouTube, but our subject is relatively narrow; country- and trade- specific.) Some visitors are tire-kickers, just passing through, but many of you come here regularly, for which we're very grateful. The visits, the passalongs to friends and colleagues, the click-throughs to

Time and Newsweek, old adversaries with a common challenge

The move upstairs for Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek magazine for nearly eight years and succession by his deputy and longtime presumptive heir, Jon Meacham, 37 are part of the adjustment that both Newsweek and its crosstown rival Time magazine are going through, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal. They are profitable, but they share a problem. "Both magazines share a common

Salewicz is new ROB magazine editor

The Globe and Mail's Report on Business magazine has a new editor, promoted from within (replacing Laas Turnbull, who is now executive vice-president at Brunico): Gary Salewicz has been deputy editor since February 2005, having previously been senior editor at Toronto Life and working at Canadian Art and Canadian Geographic. He's a native of Montreal. Globe editor Edward Greenspon described

Dose's second life online

Dose, the daily magazine that had a short life in print (just a year) at CanWest MediaWorks, but which promised to come back as an online publication, has kept its promise. Media in Canada reports:"The marketing campaign for Dose.ca, launched this week, kicked off with a medical bracelet cover wrap on the September issue of Vice magazine and a reference to the slogan "What didn't kill us, made us

Fun with headlines

We are partial to clever display writing (and suckers for puns and other plays on words), so this week's prize for most wordplay on a single story has to go to Saltscapes in its September-October issue.The Halifax-based magazine has an eye-catching skybar "popcorn stuffed turkey" which is bound to make people turn inside. When they get there, the regular food column, Marie's Menu, has the

But I thought YOU had the money!

"We've been much drunker than this, but the party was so nice that we were lulled into a false sense of security. Everybody was wearing jackets; there was classical music.We didn't think anyone was going to steal our money."-- Editor Keith Gessen of the New York literary magazine n+1, explaining how, sometime during or after a successful fundraiser, somebody absconded with the $3,000 proceeds. (

Verified? Will advertisers say "So what?"

For years, the almighty nature of "paid" circulation, particularly among major U.S. magazines was somewhat inflated by things that counted as paid, but weren't; things like "public place copies" which were neither sponsored nor paid, but found in doctor's offices and places like that. Well, last year, the Audit Bureau of Circulations decreed it would no longer allow such copies to be called "paid

Toronto Star to launch free dowloadable mini-paper in September

The Toronto Star is going to produce a daily afternoon mini-paper available as a dowloadable pdf, following the lead of several European papers, including the Guardian's G24 and the Financial Times. This, according to a story in Media Post. The 8- to 12-page publication will be available at 3:30 every afternoon and can be printed, in colour if available, on standard 81/2 x 11 paper. The launch is

Quote, unquote (but seriously, folks)

mediabistro:What does an "editor-at-large" do?Black: I'm a lot like the Queen of England. It's basically a figurehead position. I get to go to all the Cracked polo matches and balls, but I have no actual power. I'm also like the Queen of England insofar as I wear a tiara and carry a scepter.-- From an interview by media bistro with Michael Ian Black, the new editor of the new Cracked.

More from the librarians

For those of you who liked the inaugural Ask the Librarians column in the blog EmDashes, there's another one (they come out about once a month). As we reported in a post in July, the librarians of the New Yorker answer burning questions of readers such as "Why is there now a Table of Contents?"

Transcon and SAQ start wine quarterly

French language magazines in Quebec that rely on beverage alcohol advertising may soon be suffering the same kind of drought that has been in evidence in Ontario and in Nova Scotia as the government goes into direct competition with them. The Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) and Transcontinental Media have announced the launch of CELLIER, a quarterly, bilingual, high-end publication aimed at

Do you bat left or right?

Maybe we don't get out much, but this is new to us. CLB Media of Aurora, a big trade publisher, posted an ad for an advertising sales person on August 24 on the Mastheadonline job board. Included in it (and posted on the CLB website) is a mandatory pre-screening questionnaire.1. What interests you about the Account Representative position and why do you want to work for CLB Media?

Hello! launch bash to be a celeb-heavy benefit for children's charity

Hello! (Canada) Publisher Shelley Middlebrook says that the magazine will officially introduce itself with a big splash Sept. 9 during the Toronto International Film Festival, according to an item in Media in Canada: "There will be a celebrity-heavy launch party at U. of T.'s classy Hart House," says the item, "and the mag is teaming with Alliance Atlantis, Air Canada, the Fairmont Royal York

Warrior cover contest cast a wide net

We checked back in at Warrior magazine to see the result of its cover contest and the winner was from St. Petersburg in Russia. Michael Yarovikov is from Krasnoyarsk Siberia, but now lives in St. Petersburg. "My inspiration was: a little bit Russian poster 20th, a little bit surrealistic thinking, plus music from my player kind of (Animal Collective & Death From Above 1979). Now I

Atlantic Magazine workshops announced

The recently formed Atlantic Magazines Association and the Atlantic Journalism awards will together be holding workshops for the magazine industry -- October 3 in St. John's (for Newfoundland and Labrador) and October 5 in Halifax (for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI). Details of the workshop topics, cost and registration forms can be found at www.atlanticmagazines.ca or by calling 902-425-

Green, but not just any shade of green...

It gives a whole new meaning to greening. You may want to watch for a new magazine called Verdant, though it won't be available on newsstands until next year. The magazine's slogan is Smarter Choices for Better Living.The closest that Canada has to such a thing is the excellent Green Living from Key Publishers, but it is mostly concentrated in the Toronto area (the City of Toronto is one of its

The short, unhappy life of a shopping mag

In the last 18 months, any magazine publishing company that didn't somehow get on the shopping magazine bandwagon was so yesterday. Not at easy as it looks, apparently, as Hearst announced on Friday that it was closing Shop Etc. The deed was done, according to website Jossip.com, because advertisers just weren't that impressed.SHOP Etc.'s staffers learned of their demise in the most Hollywood of

Quote, unquote

"Yes, we’re both print magazines, but we feel like there’s enough of a distinction between the two.”-- Stephen Perretta the vice president and general counsel at MagnaPublishing in Paramus, N.J., publishers of Portfolio , an adult magazine that exclusively features black women and was launched in 1991. He was explaining to Women's Wear Daily why Magna wasn't going to sue Condé Nast for its