"Not dead, just transformed"; Ricepaper mag discontinues print edition

Ricepaper magazine has discontinued its print edition after 20 years of publication. The Vancouver-based magazine focuses on Asian-Canadian literature and will continue to do so, only online. The publication began as a newsletter for the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop (ACWW) and has published prominent Asian-Canadian writers such as Wayson Choy, Kid Koala and David Suzuki.

“We’re not dead, We’re just transformed,” founder Jim Wong-Chu told The Georgia Straight. “We’ve been around 20 years.That’s a long legacy. We’re transitioning online, we have a whole group of editors working on the online thing, and in two to three years, they’ll see if the switch will focus on that medium.”

Wong-Chu attributed the decision in part to competition from other platforms for attention and a lack of funding.

“A lot of [funding] was disappearing because you were dealing with the Harper era and they’re cutting, cutting, and cutting. $20,000 disappeared this year—a large component of what keeps the magazine running,

“We spend 60 percent of our time trying to fund-raise and write grants just to keep it afloat, which is way off-balance, as opposed to serving the community; you can only put in so much content.

“We decided that it was not cost-effective and we didn’t want to get to the point that we were pushed out,” Wong-Chu says. “So we decided to get out before we were pushed out.”

The online version will have video interviews, podcasts and even an ACWW archive.