Contributors’ Notes
This is a magazine without a masthead. Or, to put it another way, our Contributors’ Notes are our masthead. The magazine was written, edited, and fact checked by our contributors, all students at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Victor Navasky and Amy Wilentz served as faculty advisers. Scott Sherman acted as managing editor. Sam Antupit was the art director. Sam Wong and John Giuffo implemented the design and production.
Jamie Jones:
(email: [email protected])
A South Carolinian with an English degree, Jones had to withstand the
rescheduling of a single interview several times in order to speak with
the elusive fiction editor at The New Yorker, Bill Buford, for
The New York Review of Magazines. The painful, arcane, and near-humiliating
experience taught Jones what it must be like to actually submit a short
story to The New Yorker’s fiction department, with its bins of unread
prose and its more than quirky selection methods.
Anne Hemmett
Stern (email: [email protected])
It was Stern’s liflong love of pets (at six she had a family of pet rats
that she’d wheel around her neighborhood in a baby carriage; now she has
a scruffy dog called Baxter) that led her to review Animal Fair magazine.
Her article on the undervalued art of writing letters to the editor makes
you wonder if you, as a letter writer, are a Captious Corrector, a Hectoring
Historian, or simply, a Splenetic Subject.
Kristan Zimmer
(email: [email protected])
Zimmer has written Rosie O’Donnell an open letter to the editor to comment
on the launch issue of Rosie (the magazine). Zimmer also contributed a
personal essay on her torrid relationship with in-flight magazines.
Catherine Lee
(email: [email protected])
A former Saatchi and Saatchi employee, Lee has written an article about
how Esquire turned from a macho male, dirty-fisted fly fisherman in the
1950s to the tender-hearted, scent-using, deodorized sweetheart we see
evoked in its pages today. She also developed our Table of Contents quiz.
Guess which magazine has buried its Table of Contents under the largest
mound of advertising….
Sandra Adams
(email: [email protected])
Former corporate lawyer Sandra Adams has recently discovered a talent
for writing haiku. Her verse on the travails of trees (the poor things
are turned into magazines like this one!) rivals any heroic, tragic saga.
In addition, Adams examines the battle between the publisher of D magazine
in Dallas and his hot and sexy New York fashion advertisers. The man went
head to head (so to speak) with Gucci — and his magazine survived.
Bryan Close
(email: [email protected])
Close was an actor for almost ten years, and once lost 20 pounds in India,
so he knows lean living. His piece on two New York freelance writers and
their tribulations and triumphs does not neglect to examine the financial
pain endured by such fabulous and courageous types. Close also takes on
Vanity Fair and creates our Watching the Watchers department, in which
he evaluates other magazines’ thumbs-up-thumbs-down columns.
Kate Novack
(email: [email protected])
A refugee from the world of politics and public relations, Novack, a Boston
native, was ready for duty checking out the magazine flow at kiosks, newsstands
and subway outlets all over town. What bliss it then seemed to take up
watch at a cozy Barnes & Noble’s newsrack, or within the warm hominess
of a Gristedes Superstore checkout line. Novack’s politically charged
article on the ongoing power and market struggles between the country’s
most visible African-American magazines is a prime example of what TNYRM
does best. It’s a thoughtful and provocative investigation into a much
overlooked subject.
Prue Clarke
(email: [email protected])
Clarke is a finance reporter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
in Sydney, Australia. She has degrees in economics and international affairs.
You should consider yourself lucky even to be reading her article on The
Weekly Standard.
Pamela Clark
(email: [email protected])
Business writer Clark (not related to “Clarke” although, similarly, Australian)
worked for ten years at IBM. Clark’s article on Golf Digest’s changing
ownership looks at two trends in the industry: the overwhelming power
of consolidation in magazines and the importance of celebrities in marketing
them (in this case, the boyish Tiger Woods). Clark also takes a separate
look at the struggle of independent magazines to make it in a world of
media consolidation. It’s hard. You should fund TNYRM immediately.
Nina Rayburn
Dec (email: [email protected])
Dec helped start a non-profit organization to assist women in the entertainment
industry. In this issue, she tracks this year’s magazine start-ups and
failures. Her piece on movies that have been made from magazine articles
explains what the two media have in common, and why we love movies based
on journalism. She has been known to write under the pseudonism of a Great
Neck housewife. After graduation, Dec hopes to continue writing about
film, music and theater.
Diana Wang
(email: [email protected])
Wang’s piece on aMagazine takes a personal look at the nation’s most successful
publication catering to Asian Americans, and also explains what it means
to the growing and changing Asian-American community. Wang also lent a
hand and a pair of eyes and gloves to the frigid zone of TNYRM’s newsstand
watch.
Dore Carroll
(email: [email protected])
Carroll’s article on Harper’s publisher Rick MacArthur examines at a maverick
who spends half his time raising money for his magazine (like any publisher)
and the other half alienating advertisers — on moral grounds! Her piece
on magazine distributors helps explain why we see Vogue or Bazaar splashed
across certain newsstands and why small magazines get squeezed out. Also,
you can decorate your home in the soothing black and white of Carroll’s
Wallpaper* review.
Tina Guarino
(email: [email protected])
Guarino is a get-up-and-goer who always has a new line on an old thing.
In this issue she celebrates the first birthday of O (The Oprah magazine).
What is it that Guarino finds so compelling about O (besides the bright
little colored square in the logo)? It’s the way you feel when you read
it, she says, as if you’re surrounded by a close-knit group of the best
kind of girl friends.
Anna-Sophie
Loewenberg (email: [email protected])
When Loewenberg lived in China, she worked for Beijing Scene, a weekly
magazine. Here, she looks at ReDegg, a Chinese technology magazine modeled
on America’s amazing stand-alone start-up, Red Herring. Loewenberg delves
into the problems ReDegg has encountered, publishing in a world that has
only recently opened up to the idea of private media. She also contributed
some steam to our cold-weather kiosk watch, and is this month’s Ad Watch
columnist.
Jennifer Pinkowski
(email: [email protected])
A former vegetarian who now adores bacon and all varieties of cow, Pinkowski
concentrated her innate hostility towards all things snotty into an equally
snotty review of Tycoon magazine. Though she also writes fiction, her
piece on religion magazines is entirely factual. She culled this month’s
contributors notes from each one of our contributors, a sisyphean task.
Amazingly, Pinkowski once slept through a tsunami warning — blaring sirens
failed to rouse her. Imagine our editorial meetings.
Devyani Onial
(email: [email protected])
Onial oversaw the far-flung correspondents who fanned out over the triborough
area to get the dope on newsstand sales. She interviewed Time magazine’s
world editor Joshua Ramo and discussed with him how he and Time became
involved in a kind of worldwide civic journalism campaign, encouraging
readers to buy safe birthing boxes — complete with razor and clean cloth
— for women in Africa, and to contribute to various other good causes
in the Third World.
John Giuffo
([email protected])
Giuffo grew up reading comics and often dreamed of the day when he would
write and draw his own. Then the comic book industry collapsed, publishers
folded and he woke up. This journalism thing is his fallback calling.
He profiles comics journalist Joe Sacco on the subject of serious comics
and their place in magazines and books. He also reviews The Comics Journal
in our back pages; both pieces seem to prove that you can never really
escape your past. He has also been an invaluable design and production
adviser to the magazine.
Katie Prout
(email: [email protected])
Prout provides us with a useful and amusing abecedary (look it up!!) of
magazine titles from A to Z. To prove that she really knows her English
grammar, she’s also written a piece for TNYRM about the prominence of
British writers in American journalism. She tries to answer the questions
we’ve all been asking about the British invasion: How did they get so
smart? How come they’re so tough? And worst of all: Why do they know so
much? Don’t worry, Prout concludes: They’re not genetically superior.
It’s all in their education.
