The Walrus Foundation announces cross-country conversations about Canada's next 50 years

The Walrus Foundation, publishers of The Walrus magazine, have announced a national tour next spring that will mark the 150th anniversary of Canada.  [click image above to enlarge.] The non-profit foundation, in partnership with the Order of Canada and Canada 150, will present an expanded edition of The Walrus Talks: Conversations about Canada: We Desire a Better Country. The free events over 13 weeks from March 1—June 1, 2017 will focus on Canada's future, featuring  fifty members of the Order of Canada and fifty youth leaders at events in 13 provinces and territories . The sesquicentennial coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Order.
Among the participants so far announced, performers and otherwise, will be Margaret Atwood, Tom Jackson, Molly Johnson, Clara Hughes, Roberta Jamieson, Susan Aglukark, Shelagh Rogers, Murray McLauchlan, John Kim Bell, Samantha Nutt, Charles Pachter, Ben Heppner, Jane Hilderman and Caro Lufti.

“Conversations about Canada will build a deeper understanding of Canada,” says Shelley Ambrose, executive director of the Walrus Foundation and publisher of The Walrus. “It will provide Canadians with opportunities to participate and celebrate together; shape a more inclusive vision of Canadian society, its people, and what it means to be Canadian; and recognize the exceptional Canadian people, places, achievements, and events that will shape our country for the next fifty years.”

30th anniversary launch of Ryerson Review of Journalism April 4

Ryerson Review of Journalism  is launching its Summer 2013 issue (which is also the 30th anniversary issue) on Thursday, April 4th, 2013 starting at 5:30 p.m. It's at The Corner Place, located at 11 Jarvis St., at Front St. (St. Lawrence Market). 

This event also marks a change of circulation model for RRJ, which has been publishing two issues annually and starting next year will be publishing an expanded annual, supported by an expanded online presence. 

In a posting on the J-source site, the chair of the journalism faculty, Ivor Shapiro, who also acts as publisher of the magazine, announced that it had become too expensive to produce in its current form.

“The RRJ's always run in the red. There's always been a net cost to the school and it's growing substantial,” he said. “So when a particular activity consistently and predictably produces a net cost, you have to look at that and say, 'Is there another way of doing this?' And I think this a better way of doing it.” Shapiro said the RRJ will potentially cover its costs with the move.

The per-issue cost of publishing the magazines has been about $27,500. The media industry probably spills more than that , yet the RRJ has always had to struggle. A typical issue has been between 72 and 88 pages (the most recent is 88) and each issue has a masthead staff of approximately 15 students who choose to do the project(s). Professional help is provided -- for instance in art direction (the current art director is Tim Davin) -- and professionals from various places are paid a small honorarium to handling editors. 

The magazine relies on advertising -- really sponsorship -- from various media concerns, large and small, a hand which some may have felt bitten when those sponsors were profiled. The magazine's faculty advisors push students to ask some very hard questions and publish the sometimes unflattering answers. 

If that doesn't motivate you to attend the event, consider the $3 pints and the music of 1983, in honour of the year RRJ was launched. 

Portfolio of illustrators created to celebrate 10 issues of Global Brief

Those who remember how the quarterly international affairs magazine Global Brief was almost smothered in its crib by Research in Motion mogul Jim Balsillie will want to celebrate with art director Louis Fishauf the creation of 10 issues of the beautifully illustrated magazine. Fishauf has created a portfolio of the covers and featured inside  artwork he has commissioned  from some of the best illustrators around; the likes of Gary Taxali, Blair Drawson, Keith Negley, Brad Yeo, Jose Ortega and Noah Woods. 

"I'm quite proud of all the great art work represented in the portfolio," says Fishauf. "Despite working with a very modest art budget, I've been able to recruit some of the finest illustrators in Canada, the US and Europe, by cashing in some of the goodwill that still lingers from my AD heyday, and offering the artists a lot of creative freedom."

Readings and music mark landmark collaboration between Arc Poetry and The New Quarterly

The innovative QuArc Issue, a summer edition collaboration between The New Quarterly and Arc Poetry magazine, is being marked with a reception and readings on Wednesday, July 27 at the Bookshelf in Guelph (41 Quebec Street). The doors open at 5pm, the evening kicks off with a poetical musical set by Kay’la Fraser at 6. Readings begin @ 6:40 and include Erin Noteboom Bow, Shane Nielson, Tanis Macdonald and Jim Johnstone. It's pay-what-you-can. You can see samples from the double, flipbook issue here. Contributors to the magzine includeChristian Bök, Don McKay, Alice Munro,Margaret Atwood, and many more.

Flare magazine marks 30th anniversary

Flare magazine celebrates its 30th anniversary with its 264-page September issue, on newsstands this week. It features 30 years of the hottest fashion, beauty and celebrity coverage in a magazine with not one, but three covers, each featuring Daria Werbowy, a top super model.And the issue sells for only $1.99.

"For three decades Flare has remained the style authority for Canadian women, offering a uniquely Canadian view and inspiring readers to create their own personal style," said publisher Kerry Mitchell. "

Canadian Art magazine starts next 25 years with new logo, design and format

Canadian Art magazine is celebrating 25 years this fall with a new logo (shown below) , a complete redesign and a larger format, according to a posting on Mastheadonline. The fall anniversary issue is focussed on contemporary Canadian artists who are "setting the pace for the new art scene". The magazine will have reason to celebrate, the story says, since the magazine had record sales revenue in 2008 which is largely attributed to its special issue on art schools.The 25th anniversay celebration will focus around the annual Gallery Hop fundraiser, with a gala dinner (prepared by celebrity chef Jamie Kennedy) and auction. Tickets benefit the Canadian Art Foundation and are $300 each or $4,000 per table.

Fashion magazine fetes models to celebrate 30th

Fashion magazine is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a 300-page issue that, among other things, salutes Canadian models, three of whom -- Julia Dunstall, Heather Marks and Meghan Collison grace the cover.

"When we started to plan this anniversary issue and discuss what really stays with people when it comes to fashion, we kept coming back to the models. Those beautiful creatures who bring fashion to life," says Ceri Marsh, Editor-in-Chief, in a release. "Canadian models are the hottest girls in the business. At Fashion we've always known it - since our launch 30 years ago, we've championed Canadian beauties."

Fashion, which claims to be Canada's oldest fashion and beauty magazine, has about 1.9 million readers according to PMB 2007. It started out as a supplement to Toronto Life and has kept a close relationship with its parent, being sold as a package to subscribers. Both magazines are published by the privately held St. Joseph Media.

Tomorrow (Oct. 11) the magazine is co-hosting a private dinner party with Yves Saint Laurent's Opium scent (also celebrating its 30th anniversary) and holding a celebration for 800 guests at Moss Park Armouries(a stone's throw from the magazine's offices on Queen East).

Malahat Review at 40 celebrates legacy of founder Robin Skelton

The Malahat Review next week is celebrating its 40th year as one of Canada's leading literary publications. There will be a series of events at the University of Victoria including a launch party for the issue, a talk by writer Robert Bringhurst, readings by seven celebrated BC poets, and a puppet, spoken-word, and video extravaganza. For details visit www.malahatreview.ca.

The celebration will mark the legacy of the journal's late co-founder, Robin Skelton. Skelton published over 100 books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and history, was well known as an art collector and was instrumental in establishing the University of Victoria's Department of Writing, Special Collections at McPherson Library and The Malahat Review. The 40th-anniversary issue (#160, Fall 2007), which is a Skelton tribute, contains new writing by the late poet and poetry, articles, memoirs, stories and reviews by 40 writers from five countries.

He and English professor John Peter established the quarterly Malahat in 1967, in the midst of an explosion of CanLit publishing that occurred around the Canadian centennial. (The name of the publication comes from the name of a sacred mountain of the Malahat First Nation.) Skelton became sole editor in 1971.

He inspired generations of Canadian writers, including Marilyn Bowering, Rhonda Batchelor (now assistant editor of Malahat), Theresa Kishkan, David Day, Harold Rhenisch and Neile Graham.

“For me, being the Malahat’s editor is a homecoming, as I was Robin’s student more than 20 years ago,” says John Barton, a poet and former editor of Ottawa’s poetry journal, Arc. “I think Malahat still fulfills Robin’s original goal to publish the best of the country’s writing alongside the best from elsewhere.”

The university is raising funds for a scholarship in Skelton's name and that of his wife Sylvia.

Fashion magazine celebrates 30 in style

Fashion magazine is turning 30 and is making a party of it. The St. Joseph title has created a special part of its website to a look back at 30 years of covers and to reminiscences by former editor John MacKay, photographer George Whiteside and fashion writers David Livingston and Susie Sheffman.

The magazine, now edited by Ceri Marsh, started as a line extension of Toronto Life and gradually took on a life of its own (though it is still tightly partnered with TL).

We understand that, for a big 30th anniversary party next month, the magazine is partnering with, among others, Opium by Yves St. Laurent, which coincidentally got its start in 1977, too.

GQ celebrates its 50th with 10 (!) split-run covers of "style icons"

Oh, wow, it must be nice to have a big budget. GQ, the stylish men's magazine from Conde Nast, is celebrating its 50th anniversary by publishing 10 (count 'em) 10 split-run covers showing "style icons" from 5 decades. This according to the lead story in minOnline.

Before GQ launched in 1957 (then as the Apparel Arts supplement to Esquire), the typical man dressed, à la the 1956 Gregory Peck movie, in that all-conforming gray flannel suit. GQ was the catalyst to the men's-fashion revolution, and editor-in-chief (since March 2003) Jim Nelson tells min that in the October commemorative, "we chose 50 men who epitomized style and change." Ten are on the split-run covers--from 'godfathers of cool' Sean Connery, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford to the present-day Tom Brady and Johnny Depp--representing what Nelson says "is, in a fashion sense, the ascent of man." Others in the "fraternity" are Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, John F. Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, and Al Pacino. Five are shown here:

min, a pricey, invaluable newsletter about the media industry, notes the perception of GQ as a "gay" magazine 20 or 30 years ago, when this was decidely not considered a compliment.

How much better conditions now are debatable, but September 2007 cover Barack Obama certainly did not react like JFK did in February 1962, when he railed to the late Time White House bureau chief Hugh Sidey about being on the cover of a "clothing magazine" that the less politically correct Bobby Kennedy called a "fag rag" (min, March 31, 2003).

But GQ's greatest influence has come since August 1983, when Condé Nast chairman S.I. Newhouse, Jr.--four years after paying $9.2 million for the magazine--hired the late Art Cooper as editor-in-chief. Editor Nelson described the 1983-2003 reign of his predecessor with one word: "substantative".

"He remade GQ to fit his image of an 'every guy,' with politics, sports, cars, and girls joining fashion and lifestyle. Art blew the lid off of GQ."