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 subscribe or to buy back copies. There, on their rather funky website (I think the lined journal pages are cute, but a bit over the top) is a picture of most of their issues going back to the premier in summer 2001, each with a brief description and a radio button to click so that you can buy them using PayPal. Couldn't be easier.

Similarly, they promote two-year subscriptions with a selection of folk or world music CDs as premiums that can also be seen and easily clicked for.

They also provide sound clips from the various groups featured on the cover or in the current issue of the magazine.

The magazine and its editor Roddy Campbell were instrumental in launching the "folkies", the awards program of the Canadian Folk Music Association and the magazine maintains a profile in its community by inaugurating and sponsoring the Young Performer of the Year Award at the event, which will be held December 10 in Edmonton.

A one-year sub is $23.25 and a single copy is $5.99.

I'm not even fond of folk music, but I like the way they run their magazine.