I'll be attending and helping with the Alberta Magazines Conference at the end of this week. If you're in the neighborhood and needing to know about all things magazine, this is the place for you. I have threatened all year to pop up in tap shoes and belt Wind Beneath My Wings during my intros so if you are attending and see someone being wrestled off the stage, that's me.
We've started a brand new email update list that anyone can join. From time to time, we'll be sending out emails about Beyond goings-on. You'll find out about what we're reading, who we're talking and listening to, the highs and highers of magazine publishing, and what we're rolling around in our collective brain. Some super-secret inside tips might even be made available. We'll also be asking for your ideas and suggestions so we can make "the little magazine about a lot of things" even better. Sign up now and join the fun! And help keep independent media alive and thriving.
(In line with our privacy policy, we won't trade or sell your information. Because it's yours. So we don't do that.)
Just back from a few days in Victoria, BC - the place with green grass and budding trees. And this is what greets a return to the tiny Beyond offices.
If you click that Get Beyond Now! button you will be instantly transferred to our new Beyond shop where we exchange Beyond for a few goats and then we sell the goats and get dollars.
Update: I talked to my people and they suggested skipping the goat portion as we have a small office. Thus the new Beyond shop is online and now taking currency in trade for "the little magazine about a lot of things".
You can send gift subscriptions, subscribe, buy single issues, and you can Give Beyond to Libraries - an exciting new thing we are doing that we will tell you more about this week.
So one whoo and also a hoo as we cut the ribbon on our new blog and online shop.
Don't mind us. Just moving the furniture around.
Okay, we're back. And a new issue is out and we're mailing and answering email and processing subscriptions at the old prices until our new shop is finished. And our domain name has been released, finally released, from the big black dungeon of the giant internet company. Hooray. Dozens of emails and long phone calls later. The internet makes life easier. Remember that. Chant it. Beleeeeeeeve it.
Bookmark this page for Monday and we will show you a sneak peek of Issue 16: Small in all of its multi-paged glory.
Beyond magazine has been nominated for Best Design at the Utne Independent Press Awards:
"We began by upending the orderly shelves of our library, corralling some 1,300 magazines, newsletters, journals, alt weeklies, and zines into wobbly stacks. Then we dug in to read articles that we might have missed during the year and to reread our favorites—everything from gritty newsprint publications to polished perfect-bound journals. After much deliberation, debate, and a bit of teeth-gnashing, we whittled it all down to 111 standouts."
These are the things we tell our mothers about. Oh and you of course. But our mothers will cut this out and put it on the fridge.
I'm back from an unexpected side trip to Dubai which took place after attending Magnet in Toronto. A very small family crisis brought me to one air-conditioned villa with one strange but happy little dog in the Al Barsha development of the ever-expanding city of Dubai. There I stayed for nearly six weeks, hammering out the next issue while men hammered out more villas by hand in 45 degree heat outside of my window.
I've just spent the entire weekend outside helping with the AMPA booth at the Calgary Folk Festival and adjusting to the shock of being able to spend more than two minutes at a time in outdoor air.
And so this morning, I sit at my desk with a six week pile of mail that includes subscriptions (hurray!), donations (c'mon print bill for Beyond Issue 16: Small), writing submissions (yes, some people do still send 'em by mail), and other sundry bits of correspondence.
Stories to follow. Shakes fist at sky and says in Scarlett O'Hara voice, "As God is my witness, Beyond shall blog again!"
Well, we haven't been here in a while. We're turning a little stack of index cards, into a little paper filled with tiny thumbnail views of what will soon be another 68 pages of goodness. Coming as soon as we raise the money for the next print bill, Issue 16: Small. Feel free to subscribe, donate, or jump in at the face and the book to give us your content and fundraising ideas.
View the The Shatner Show trailer.
We want to give a galaxy sized "Hurray!" to Beyond designer Janine Vangool and the Uppercase Gallery. This Friday marks the opening of The Shatner Show , "a book and exhibition of artwork depicting William Shatner by artists and illustrators from Canada and the US."
We have seen previews and are overcome with much Shatner joy. We are beaming in that "Beam me up Scotty!" way. This is a beautiful piece of work. We hope this is only the beginning of many Uppercase books to come.
Go ahead and buy a copy before they all disappear. If you can still get a thrill from whooshing of the bridge doors, you must own this wonderful book.
The Captain's Blog is the place for all things Shatner this week. Follow along and pick out your favorite Shatner-ati while singing "ahhhh, ahhhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhh's" at the top of your lungs.
A brand new map o' the Beyond world. Where our readers, subscribers, and contributors are. Where you can find us in bookstores. Where we built our secret headquarters and clubhouse. We've only just begun so we'll keep updating you as we go along. Must wash clubhouse windows.
We're still getting this new typepad blog into shape but we have had time to get Beyond onto Facebook. So if you want to use this for your friendly communications, (please don't pick us last for dodgeball, please don't pick us last for dodgeball ), with Beyond, we would be quite happy to meet you there. Someone has already started a Friends of Beyond group and we hope to get some rip roaring conversations going there.
Subscribe beginning with the no-ads issue of your choice.
Featuring:
Photographers Karin Bubas, Adrian Fish, Chris Jordan and Sebastiao Salgado.
Beyond's Very First Words and Pictures Contest
Kinbrace House by Giselle Culver
Lifting the Veil: Nelofer Pazira with Matthew Francis
In Conversation with K'naan
All About: Bread
Sir George by Mary Jo Leddy
Film Journey: Los Angeles Plays Itself by Doug Cummings
Featuring:
Photographers Karin Bubas, Adrian Fish, Chris Jordan and Sebastiao Salgado.
Beyond's Very First Words and Pictures Contest
Kinbrace House by Giselle Culver
Lifting the Veil: Nelofer Pazira with Matthew Francis
In Conversation with K'naan
All About: Bread
Sir George by Mary Jo Leddy
Film Journey: Los Angeles Plays Itself by Doug Cummings
And much more. Page previews to come. We're migrating this blog over to another platform in the next few days and so there will be better ways to subscribe, get involved, and become part of the Beyond reader community. But meanwhile, did we mention the new issue is here?
Neko Case is accompanying the final microscopic edits for Issue 15: Where We Are. It
has been a long time since we've printed but we're still here and on
our way. On we go. If you come back early next week, we'll have some
previews of this next issue.
This week as I was flipping through the Banff Calgary Wordfest program, I remembered my very first reading. I was about five and my oldest brother had just taught me to read despite repeated problems with the word "something" - so long and full of mysterious sounds and shapes.
I was one of the first to read in my kindergarten class (I know, I know - all you four-year-old readers - I was slow.) and my teacher asked me to share something from My Little Green Story Book. I was small for my age but my parents were convinced that I would grow into things so I was often in bigger jackets and shoes. This wasn't really a problem at age 5. Bigger clothes ususally didn't interfere with my choice of favorite mismatched shirt, polyester pants, and cotton sneakers. I did start becoming concerned in junior high when I actually stopped growing and kept floating around in overly large down winter jackets until my parents' "You'll grow into it" motto died along with my hopes for college basketball.
But somewhere between rising and my first reading, I lost my "You'll grow into it" shoe. It flopped off my foot and rather than let go of My Little Green Story Book, I hop stepped to the front of the class, opened my book and read, one foot on solid ground, one white-leotard clad batch of toes tipped down to make up the difference in height.
Mother said, "Stop here, Father.
I see something here.
I see something for dinner."Tom said, "I see something.
Can I stop here?
I can get something here."
I remembered this as I was looking at all the authors, poets, and performers on the Wordfest schedule. One piece of work is barely finished and another is expected to come out. And all of us want to appear polished and in control of our creations, even as one shoe flops off of our feet and into the aisle. That's how I picture most readers and presenters at these kind of things. One shoe on and one shoe off but ready to say, "I see something."
Beyond has recently joined the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association. Tonight Pages Books in Calgary will celebrate Alberta magazines with readers from the arts, literary, and cultural magazines. Beyond will be there! Hurray!
This is the beginning of our quest to be found in quality bookstores in many lands. If you have a favorite bookstore in your city, contact them and ask how a new magazine could find their way onto their merry shelves. Then contact us at readit at beyondmag dot com and we'll send beautiful Beyonds their way. This would be of great help.
Things are a blur and this blog has become a part of that blur. I have been unsure of what to blog here. Now that Beyond has launched into the big wide world, I have been caught up in what granting people want the magazine to be, what some art and literary folk expect it to be (according to their interests or tastes), and the strange and wonderful little soup of what we, the volunteers, can and will authentically produce.
So I've been experiencing a kind of blog block. I shouldn't get so angst ridden. If Beyond is about exploring the human experience, then I (and we) explore that experience through many of our important things without apology. We try to do it with some skill and thought and intention but we do not have to worry about our efforts meeting everyone's expectations.
I know this sounds like some junior high experiment in identity and discovering ourselves but it's difficult to maintain focus when you are out there amidst a myriad of voices. And now for a flurry of posts. Why not?
We are back online. Just in time to make fun of the Republican Convention and to be freshly scrubbed for September 1st. Look for all the breaking news here because, as you know, you can't live without news. Count on ABC News and the Associated Press to keep you thinking with articles like this one forwarded to Beyond under the heading "I smell a Pulitzer."
If ever there was ever any doubt that we need independent media...
Our apologies to all those faithful Beyond blog visitors for the last week. We have been messed with, really messed with by a giant phone company. Their name starts with "T" and ends with "us". They have a huge monopoly on phone systems in Western Canada but still can't make their company work. They have been ordered by the CRTC to improve their customer service and this week, our little David found out why. Goliath needs a few more stones to the head.
A simple switch on a line turned into a fiasco of disconnected internet, shut off phone lines, and conversatons with over a dozen phone representatives (names range from Destiny to Trish) that promised to phone back and never did. A longer blog entry complete with hold music selections is needed. For now, we are *still* accessing the internet via an old dial-up account which means everything is taking longer. It would be advisable to avoid using Telus for any kind of communications service. We'll be looking into this in the future if Goliath decides to acknowledge our existence this week.
Thanks for your patience as we deal with this.
We've added some sample pages of the latest issue so you can take a look before you subscribe.
Here we are. All into Typepad with Photo Albums and Archived posts to follow. A big thanks to Jordon and Janine for all their help. This should make the Beyond blogging much easier.
We're off to the Calgary Folk Festival this weekend to do interviews and gain inspiration for our forthcoming issues. If you are from the area, you might spot us in our big "SUBSCRIBE!" sandwich boards and spandex Beyond outfits.
