Behind the Scenes at Yankee Magazine from YankeeMagazine.com

Make a Camera Strap Cover

rss@ypi.com (Christine Chitnis) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 04:00:00 +0100

I constantly get stopped on the street and asked the same question, "Where did you get your camera strap?" I have to laugh, because it is probably the easiest project that I have ever made, yet it has attracted the most attention!

With a bit of colorful fabric and very basic sewing skills, you too can have a stop-them-in-their-tracks camera strap!

Materials for Camera Strap Cover

sturdy fabric (I prefer to use canvas—my strap was made using fabric from Jessica Jones' collection).
sewing machine
existing camera strap
measuring tape
scissors

Instructions to Make a Camera Strap Cover

Measure your existing camera strap (only the fabric portion, not the leather ends). Add 1 inch to the width, and ¼ " to the length (for seam allowance), and cut a strip of fabric with these measurements.
Begin by hemming the short ends of the fabric—do this by folding in the ends ¼ " and pressing, and then folding over another ¼ " and pressing. Stitch the seam closed, and this gives you a finished edge. Repeat for the other short end.
Fold your fabric in half, lengthwise, with right sides facing together. Stitch down the entire length, with ¼" seam allowance. Your fabric should now form a tube.
Turn your tube right side out, and slide it over your existing camera strap (it is a tight fit, but squeezing the bulky leather piece at the end will help you slip your tube over it).

My Worst Hike Ever

rss@ypi.com (Justin Shatwell) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Climbing Mount Sunapee in early June was not my best plan ever. I was in the area this week doing research for a travel story. Yankee Publishing was recently awarded the contract to produce the New Hampshire Tourism department's annual travel guide for 2012, so this week it was my job to familiarize myself with the Dartmouth/Sunapee region. Cruising around Lake Sunapee in early summer is pretty good for government work, but it wasn't as posh as it sounds. When people hear that you're a travel writer, they tend to assume your work is all fun and games. In reality, however, you spend most of your day in the car speeding from one destination to another and trying to cover as much of the area as you can before the sun goes down. They're long days and there isn't much time to rest and breathe in the atmosphere.

All day I held Mount Sunapee in front of me as a reward. If I made it to all the destinations I wanted to cover early enough, I'd hike up the mountain in the last few hours before sunset. I'd still be scouting, but it would give me a chance to slow down and take in some scenic vistas.

I pulled into the Mount Sunapee parking lot around 4pm. I didn't have a trail map, but I figured I could just wing it. This was my first mistake. You see, Sunapee is primarily a skiing mountain and all of the big signs for Mount Sunapee on the roads in the region lead you to the ski area, not a trailhead. When I got there all I found were a bunch of silent ski lifts and a few darkened lodges. After 20 minutes of looking, I managed to find an employee who gestured vaguely at the biggest lodge and told me I'd find the summit trail somewhere behind it. What I found was a dirt road running along the side of one of the trails. "I guess this is it," I thought. Mistake number two.

What I was actually hiking was a service road that zigzagged up the slope, occasionally intersecting with the various ski runs. I kept telling myself that there must be a turn off at some point for an actual trail, but after half-an-hour I realized it was never going to come.

Ski trails are not meant to be hiked. By their very nature, they are unfriendly to travelers on foot. They're steep, of course, and the wide, clear alleys rob you of any sense of being in the wilderness. The tree lines on either side are set wide enough that they provide almost no shade while at the same time being thick enough to stifle any kind of breeze.

And then there are the bugs.

The black flies of the Dartmouth/Sunapee region were enjoying the last two weeks of their infernal season. Perhaps they knew the end was coming and were desperate, or perhaps the flies of this region are particularly hearty, but whatever the reason they scoffed at tangy fumes of my bug repellent. The "Off" on the label was merely a suggestion to them, and one they were not inclined to follow. By the 45 minute mark of my hike, the excursion had become one giant buzzing, stinging mess.

The road I was following dead-ended at one of the lower ski lifts. I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I was clearly on the wrong trail and it hadn't even taken me to the summit. The flies were making me miserable and the 90-degree heat had started to take its toll. I had every reason in the world to turn back, but unfortunately I remain ever my father's son. My family's stubbornness chooses to present itself at the most inopportune times and when it does it is irresistible. I couldn't let this mountain beat me.

I struck off cross-country, picking my way across unmaintained ski trails. The going was steep, but every time I stopped to rest the black flies seemed to grow worse, so I pushed on as fast as I could. Crushed bug carcasses were clinging to my shirt and pants and every time I'd wipe the sweat out of my hair I could feel the flies clinging to my scalp. I had naively believed that the swarm would thin as I reached higher elevations, but the strong mountain breezes I was hoping for never managed to squeeze through the surrounding tree line. I gradually dawned on me that the swarm around me was growing thicker not because there were more flies at the top than at the bottom, but because the flies from the beginning of the hike were still with me. I was dragging pests from every part of the mountain along with me as I stubbornly scrambled for the summit.

When I crested the final ski run, I was filled with a sense of disappointment. The top of Mount Sunapee is ringed by trees. It was just as hot and stagnant as every other place I'd seen that day, and worst of all, there wasn't even a nice view. The summit lodge was locked and dark, but I made my way up the back steps to the third floor balcony. Around the corner of the building, the wind whipped just hard enough to confuse my buggy companions. I could make out a corner of Lake Sunapee and the mountains beyond. It wasn't breathtaking, but it was the best I was going to get. I snapped a few pictures and then started back down.

I picked the steepest, most direct run from the map of ski trails at the lodge and plunged down it, tacking against the grade to keep my footing. It didn't take long for the black flies to find me, and the swarm was just as thick on the way down as the way up. The cruelest thing about bug swarms is that you can always see the edge of them. You are forever four feet away from a place where there are no bugs. It's like a carrot on a stick, not so much motivating you as mocking your inability to stop.

Halfway down the mountain, I began to realize the toll the hike had taken on me. Wiping the bugs from my hair for the hundredth time, my fingers came back smeared with blood. Both of my elbows were bleeding freely from a dozen or more bites as well. All of my spraying and swatting hadn't accomplished anything. I must have killed scores of flies, but the swarm never seemed to thin. To them I wasn't a hiker; I was a host, and I led my flock pied-piper style down the steep slopes, cheered only by the fool's consolation of knowing I hadn't quit.

The bugs departed when I reached the foot of the mountain. I dumped the last of my water in my hair, hoping to wash out some of the dead flies and dried blood. I drove as fast as I could to the Burkehaven Lodge in Sunapee and the cold shower waiting for me there.

My shirt was soaked from water and sweat. My skin was read and my eyes were sunken. I can only guess at my smell. Yet when I checked in, the innkeeper took it all in stride. He smiled at me as I tried to pretend like I didn't look like some kind of squalid hobo. In an attempt to normalize the situation, I sheepishly asked for dinner recommendations, which he gladly supplied.

I was impressed by the service even more when I finally saw my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Apparently the black flies had gone after my ears as well and both lobes were caked in dried blood. A small scab had flaked off my right ear and has dangling there by a thread. I thought again of my poor innkeeper and laughed before climbing into the shower. Later that night, I jotted down an entry for the Burkehaven Lodge in my notes: "Unflappable courtesy in the face of absurdity. Bravo."

Message In a Box

rss@ypi.com (Ian Aldrich) — Fri, 27 May 2011 04:00:00 +0100

It's been said many times that Yankee stories are different than other kinds of magazine stories. We hear that a lot from our readers, but it also resonates with the people who work at Yankee, too. We don't do exposes, take down pieces, or big celebrity interviews, let alone Best Docs packages. Our stories have tension, but we also write with admiration for New England and the people who call it home.

The story of Pauline Niskanen is a good example of that. I'd been at the magazine just a few months when a letter from a longtime subscriber landed on my desk. I'll be honest: Story pitches and story ideas from readers come to us all the time. And despite proclamations like "The Perfect Yankee Story!" these suggestions are often far from that. This was a rare exception. Pauline, now 84 and living in Troy, New Hampshire, a run down mill town just 20 minutes from Yankee's offices in Dublin, had rarely ventured outside the state. And yet, in a wonderfully unconventional way she'd managed to develop friendships with scores of people from around the country. Long before the advent of Internet and chat rooms, Pauline, who worked on the assembly line at a box factory in nearby Keene in the 1940s, scribbled her name and address on the bottoms of the cheese, chalk, and codfish pine containers she helped create.

Pauline was tentative about a story when I first pitched it to her on the phone. "I don't know why you want to write about me," she kept saying. But I finally got her to come around to letting her meet me and show me the letters. She had just one rule: I needed to make a visit work around her soap opera schedule. I told her it wasn't deal breaker, and so, one early October morning in 2000, I made my way to her apartment, a cozy, neatly kept place on the second floor of a tired apartment building located just outside of downtown Troy. On her walls were brightly colored paintings of kittens and puppies. Pauline, who was short, with red curly hair, made me coffee in her kitchen and then after a few minutes of chit-chat retrieved her letters, which she neatly kept rubber-banded in a plastic bag in a bureau drawer.

The correspondence was more than I could have hoped for. Like a message in a bottle they'd arrived, some people looking for friendship, others seeking something more. "I have been carrying around your box around with me since I found it," wrote one lonely bachelor from South Carolina. "I only wish it was you." Another heart-struck man from Brooklyn, New York wrote: "I've got a 1939 Buick Convertible Coupe. It's bright red and really pretty."

Soon, Pauline and I were writing back and forth. Her letters would arrive at Yankee, where on occasion, around her soaps schedule of course, she'd call me up, breaking into conversation with a "Hey, honey." When I could, I'd visit her, too. She'd have a snack and coffee ready for me when I arrived, and we'd take our seat in her living room, where she'd deliver the latest gossip floating around her apartment building and I'd keep her up-to-date on my upcoming wedding.

Life had tethered Pauline to a specific, small geographical range. But her curiosity about the world was never stymied by it. She told how she'd longed to maybe move to Florida when she was younger, see other parts of the country, but her husband never matched her interest. She asked me about the places I'd traveled to, what I'd eaten and where I'd gone.

On one particular visit, after I'd gotten married, I showed her a picture of my wife, Grace. I was little nervous about it. Grace is African-American and I just wasn't sure how Pauline would greet the idea of an interracial marriage. When I gave her a picture I carried around in my wallet, Pauline looked at it hard for a few seconds, before nodding her head with approval. "That's alright," she said. "That's alright!" she added again, looking at with me with a big smile. Later I brought Grace with me for a visit and the two hit it off like old friends.

In the fall of 2002, my contact with Pauline had become more sporadic. For several months, I didn't hear from her. Then, in late winter of 2003 I received a letter from her son, who now lived in California. He wanted to let me know that his mother had passed away. He also wanted to thank me for being her friend.

Every now and again I go back to that little story I did on Pauline for Yankee. I'm grateful I got the chance to meet her. I'm grateful I got the chance to introduce her again to the world.

The Making of a Yankee Cover

rss@ypi.com (Lori Pedrick) — Fri, 20 May 2011 04:00:00 +0100

It all begins with a lineup: a roll call of story ideas that we "line up" for each of our six issues per year. We make some final decisions on what our stories will be, we have each piece written, the text comes in, and it's distributed to myself and Heather Marcus, our photo editor. Then, we begin.

A lot of stuff happens in between, but no need to get specific -- you get the idea. We generally work a year in advance, to capture fresh imagery in each season. We know how much our readers love all the seasons New England offers (even the cold, damp, muddy, and just plain miserable ones). We cast a wide net, sending our best shooters out into the region to capture the mood and tone of each story. We do as much planning as possible ahead of time to see which story will offer the most promising cover possibilities. But because we often run into certain obstacles and other conditions out of our control (Mother Nature especially), capturing the essence of the landscape, steeped in New England charm, on the right day, with a perfect blue sky and a fresh sense of the season is a challenge. Then throw into the mix the idea of finding one image that's idyllic, cover-worthy, an image that's fresh and hasn't been seen a hundred times before -- one that's graphically "clean" and arresting, one that can hold cover lines effortlessly and really "pop" on the newsstand. It's like finding a needle in a haystack.

And just when we think we've got it right and found our image, well, then the human equation is factored in. Often we can't agree on what the best cover should be. Enter the cover committee: a staff group that includes Yankee's newsstand adviser plus our president, our vice president of marketing, our editor, our managing editor, photo editor Heather Marcus, and myself. We all have our opinions on what we think makes a good cover image, and we all have our own preferences, interests, and tastes. (What I consider "pretty" may not be what someone else thinks is pretty, and so on.) And, let's face it, an image can evoke emotions and feelings within each of us in a positive or a negative way based on our own individual experiences.

We all realize the importance of the cover, and we all feel strong in our convictions from our varying perspectives. But we also agree that we have one common goal, that the face of our publication has to serve many needs and belongs to no one individual or department. Really, it belongs to you, our readers.

So we bring in another factor, the opinions of people we don't really know: an audience survey. Before I started here in 2007, Yankee began polling its readers to test potential cover images against one another to see whether any strong preferences emerged -- a process that is, as I understand it, more commonplace now more than ever amongst other publishing companies. Our readers' opinions would later help us decide which cover image was most likely to sell well on the newsstand. A questionnaire goes out to a random group of volunteer newsstand buyers and subscribers willing to participate. The covers that score the highest positive ratings get our attention. It's one more variable in our process.

For each issue, I may design anywhere from 15 to 30 cover options -- a few too many, perhaps, but it's hard to predict what will resonate and what will stick. We whittle down the possibilities to 4 to 6 of the strongest contenders. Those covers go into the survey, and approximately 200 to 300 voices are heard -- your voices. Good or bad, we hear you. (It took me a while to realize that I was better off not reading the comments offered by some of our more vocal readers. Not to sound snarky, but everyone's got an opinion and they don't mind sharing it -- and everyone thinks he or she is right. And, let's face it, so do I.)

Ultimately, my job is to present the strongest options I have for each issue, coordinate with the committee on what they think we should see, and let the process play out through its many stages. Often some of my favorite images get left on the cutting-room floor. But it's not about me, I tell my delicate little ego; it's about you, our readers. And there are a lot of times when I disagree with the outcome of these tests. But I'm just a small part of the big picture and have resolved to learn to accept the process and go with the flow. My job is to dress her up, fluff her hair, powder her nose, put her in some heels, and send her down the runway.

I continue to offer ideas that are evolved and outside the box, push the envelope some but not too far. I often look back at Yankee's past covers to draw inspiration. I love looking through all of the incredibly elaborate, thoughtfully crafted, illustrative, conceptual, and whimsical works of art that graced the face of Yankee's past. Some of my favorites are the concept driven covers created by J. Porter and the likes of fine artists such as David Brega and Erick Ingraham. I celebrate and recognize that the sign of a truly skilled art director is seeing the big picture, creating those little details, the ones that the reader isn't even aware of yet somehow subliminally gets, those clever little nuances and strokes of genius in its design.

Every magazine evolves over time. I sometimes push to revisit the flavor of those old Yankee covers and have us consider creating a finely crafted, illustrative cover for today's readers -- one that readers will cherish, maybe even frame and hang in a special place for remembrance and safekeeping -- those editions like the ones that my grandmother proudly collected and displayed on her coffee table to show off to all of her friends. It's a creative process that doesn't end with one issue, but keeps evolving, too, just as I have since I stepped through the doors here at Yankee.

Brimfield Fair Finds

rss@ypi.com (Brenda Darroch) — Thu, 19 May 2011 04:00:00 +0100

The Brimfield Antique Show kicked off its 2011 season on Tuesday, May 10th, and we were on hand to take in the festivities. Yankee communications manager Heather Atwell and I headed down from New Hampshire that morning to meet up with our senior lifestyle editor, Amy Traverso, who drove in from Boston, and our craft blogger, Christine Chitnis, who came up from Providence. Our goal was to hit the tents in search of treasure and trends, and we managed to find a bit of both.

Brimfield is chock-full of curiosities, and there truly is something for everyone there. The recurring theme we noticed, spanning all décor styles, was "upcycled" and repurposed goods. We saw plenty of lamps, planters, frames, and jewelry whose pieces had been salvaged from items that had outlived their intended use. Even worn doll parts had been combined with other vintage items, such as clocks and old tins, to create mixed-media art pieces. Repurposing is my favorite design trend: I love that old housewares, toys, and car parts are being given new life rather than being tossed into landfills … although I probably won't be bringing any doll art home anytime soon.

Top Style Trends at Brimfield

Shabby chic: This trend is alive and well at Brimfield. Options range from feminine beaded lamps to new furniture that has been painted and distressed to look aged to old file drawers masquerading as planters. Amy snatched up a decorative birdcage, which she plans on making into a chandelier. This turned out to be the steal of the day, as she couldn't walk more than a few feet without someone's stopping to ask where she'd found it and how much she'd paid.

Industrial: If you're looking to decorate a loft or urban space, you'll hit paydirt at Brimfield. Lighting runs the gamut from large metal factory lamps reminiscent of the '60s to new pendant lamps with pipe bases and chunky blown-glass globes. Hands down, the big winners in this category were the industrial-style coffee tables — think wood pallets on oversized wheels — which buyers were snatching up like hotcakes.

Nostalgic: Most of the goods being hawked at Brimfield are vintage pieces, so if you're on the lookout for classic housewares that make you yearn for days gone by, you won't be disappointed. Collectors of vintage Pyrex, Corningware, or jadeite will find plenty of patterns and styles to choose from. And if linens or old crates are your thing, they have a vast selection of those, too.

Even though we left the show with room to spare in the car, our visit to Brimfield was a success. This was our first time meeting Christine, and I have to say, she was so much fun and fit right in with the Yankee team. We hope that she'll be able to join us when we head down to this event again to find out what's hot next year.

SLIDE SHOW: Brimfield Finds

Tough Mudder New England

rss@ypi.com (Mel Allen) — Fri, 13 May 2011 04:00:00 +0100

As I trekked around the sprawling snow free, mud streaked landscape of Vermont's Mount Snow last Sunday, I asked myself: what would the early New Englanders think of the spectacle in front of them? You know, the pioneering souls who scraped the earth bare of boulders each year, only to find more the next. They hauled the stones in wagons and built the walls, and fed their families from the wild and from what they could coax from the thin scratchy soil. They trudged through waist deep snow in early spring to empty sap buckets and felled and split at least 10 cords of wood a year to keep warm. Their bodies grew hard, but often were felled by maladies that did not care if your body was hard. The New Englanders who in droves pushed west to find what they knew not, except they hoped it would offer a softer, maybe more bountiful life. I wish I could bring some of them back for a day to gaze upon this mountain crawling with some 4000 men and women, each of whom paid roughly $100-$150 (it depended on how early they signed on) for the privilege of pushing their bodies and minds to some sort of absolute limit. Their own personal reality show: can I finish what I started.

Picture this: you start running down a mountain, then run (or walk if you must) up. Then part way down. Then up. One man had a mountaineering GPS system attached to his body and said at the end of the ten mile course he had climbed the equivalent of over 7000 feet, and had punished his body through over 13,000 feet of elevation change. And, this was the easy part. Along the way you faced daunting obstacles (to put it mildly). A leap into a 35 degree snow melt pond. A sprint through a tunnel flanked by flaming hay bales, the acrid smoke stinging eyes and yet you could not close them lest you veer into a bale. A series of 12 foot high wooden walls that to climb over required every bit of fading strength, only to get over one to find yet another, and another. Long narrow galvanized tubes filled with mud soaked slime so you emerged more salamander than human. Those sorts of obstacles.

The event (which will be returning to Mount Snow next July) is called Tough Mudder. It is certainly tough, and there was surely mud. The notion of creating a day to test your mental and physical endurance, began not in the wild but in the civilized halls of Harvard Business School. In 2009, an MBA student named Will Dean, submitted his Tough Mudder idea as part of a business school competition. He did not win, and skeptical professors questioned who on earth would pay to suffer?

But the young Englishman was onto something. His event would get away from winners and trophies and the pursuit of personal bests times. The world was filled with such races. Instead, he wanted a way for people to reach out to fellow competitors, to help each other over and under and through obstacles; to create an event where "keep going" was what you heard on the course, not "passing on the right." He promoted his first event in 2010 with $8000 of Facebook ads. The event was a smash and he hasn't looked back. This year there are 16 Tough Mudders around the country and next year it moves overseas.

The impact and allure of Tough Mudder hit home when I found that Andy Freeman, Dublin General Store co-owner with his wife Michelle, and a local landmark here just a down the hill from Yankee, was entering. Andy is well into his 40s and mostly we see him behind the counter serving up the best food around. Not as someone who is jumping into snow melt ponds. But he wanted to test his limits.

As did my son Josh. He just finished a winter as a ski patrolman at Okemo and each week he posted here about his first year on the mountain. He is 23, more fit than I ever dreamed of being, and yet he too wanted to see where his limit might be. To my amazement as I tried to follow his progress here and there along the rugged terrain, he always smiled as he finished one obstacle after another, as if he were a child again exploring how dirty he could get. Only at the end when he trembled from the cold (nearly 80% of the 4000 entrants finished and nearly all whom I saw were shivering visibly from the cold and drain of the event) did I see how far he had pushed himself. A week earlier Tough Mudder had been in Pennsylvania and one woman finisher was quoted in the local paper:"There is no word to describe the muscle aches I had for two days. My bruises looked like a connect-the-dots all over my body."

So that's why I wonder what the early sturdy stock of New Englanders would have thought about all this. How many days of their lives did they come home covered in mud, soaked from snow, bruised by rocks, harassed by biting flies? They endured the elements to stay alive and to build a life. I think they would be amused, but at the same time I think they would have admired the tenacity on display. Modern life has certainly grown softer and gentler, but for one day, at least, life was reduced to just getting through, with no reward except from what's inside your heart.

Slide Show: 2011 Tough Mudder Race at Mt. Snow

Life, Death, and Magazines at the CRMA Conference

rss@ypi.com (Justin Shatwell) — Fri, 06 May 2011 04:00:00 +0100

What do you get when you fill a hotel ballroom with magazine editors? A whole lot of doubt, social awkwardness, and over analyzing. Ahhhh, the City and Regional Magazine Association Conference, how I missed you.

The CRMAs, or Creamas as I like to call it (it'll catch on, I swear), is an annual ritual for destination magazines. Any magazine that celebrates a specific place, from Milwaukee Magazine to Texas Monthly, sends a delegation to the conference in order to discuss the industry, see what's working for other people, and generally to steal as many ideas as possible.

It can be an odd affair. One thing people never realize about magazine editors is that we almost never see other people with the same job. There just aren't that many of us. It's kind of like when one zoo will ship its endangered species to another, just so they can spend some time with others of their own kind. This year they shipped us to the luxurious Drake Hotel on Chicago's waterfront (never has the phrase "right by the beach" seemed less appealing). The Creamas began with a cocktail reception that eased us all into our new habitat. It was tense at first, but with the aid of a little alcohol, editors from different magazines eventually stopped circling each other, sniffed under each others tails, and exchanged business cards. The circle of life continues!

The next two days were filled with classes and panel discussions on various topics that were deemed important this year. As you might imagine, Facebook was well represented. Smart phone and tablet apps had their moment in the sun, but no one is having much luck making them profitable. QR codes got a brief mention, but the general consensus is that they might prove to be as socially relevant as Hammer pants in a few years' time.

If you're noticing a digital theme here, you're not alone. The M in CRMA has become very subjective. No longer are magazines simply bundles of paper wrapped up in one slightly thicker piece of paper. No, now we have Web sites and videos and apps and indigestion. Someone figured out how to plug their computer into the phone outlet and suddenly things got all kinds of Darwinian in the print media world. Adapt or perish they told us. With the recent recession, a lot of us chose the latter route.

But things are not all bad. Having attended the Creamas the last two years, I can attest that things are getting better, though to be perfectly honest, we are rising above an exceptionally low bar. The 2010 CRMA Conference in Providence may as well have been named "Magazines: We're All Going to Die!"

Never before had I seen an entire industry in such a panic. Older editors were walking around the hotel with beaten and cynical looks on their faces, like dinosaurs waiting around for the meteor. I had a conversation with one such editor who blandly expressed hope that his magazine would stay afloat a few more years so he could reach retirement. Then, as if just appreciating my tender 28 years of life, he declared, "I don't know what you're going to do."

The classes were little better. I began replacing their benign titles with ones that better reflected the tenor of the conversations therein. "Best Practices for Making Money Online in 2010" became, "The Internet Stole My Wallet and Won't Give it Back." "From Crowds to Communities: Social Media and Magazines" became, "Facebook Will Devour Your Children and Burn Down Your Office." And "Join the Digital Magazine Revolution," was simplified down to "Why God? Whhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyy!?!"

So how was it this year? Marginally mellower. We were all a year older and a year wiser. We could report some areas where we found modest success and some ventures that were total flops. No one has quite cracked the code on the correct mix of old and new media, but this year there seemed to be fewer people claiming that magic formula didn't exist. There was a sense that we had found a foothold. A tenuous one, perhaps, but stable enough for us to push forward. Between 2010 and 2011, the level of rhetoric calmed from "apocalyptic" to "mild panic." If we can get to "seriously concerned" by 2012, I feel like we'll be all right.

That might not seem like a vast improvement to you, but when you're in an industry that has been declared dead as many times as ours has, you learn to appreciate the little victories. At the end of the day, magazine editors are a resilient bunch. If you measure our success like that of other endangered species, there is reason for hope. There were almost twice as many of us at the conference this year than last. The herd is growing and there are vague promises of greener pastures ahead.

We don't have all the answers yet, but we have some, and that's a start. I have forty years to go before I reach retirement and I've got a pretty good idea about what I'm going to do.

Historic Family Photos

rss@ypi.com (Heather Marcus) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:00:00 +0100

I love old photos. I feel fortunate that part of my work week often involves researching historic images, whether it's tracking down an obscure antique, a historic building or town, or images of long gone celebrities and politicians via historical societies or online photography stock houses. There's a beauty and a romanticism to an older black-and-white image that I always find compelling.

The Library of Congress is full of old photos, many of them available for researchers to view online. I had the wonderful opportunity to dive into its vast collection of Lewis W. Hine images for a recent story and slide show. The faces, and a time and place captured using an old medium, are intriguing to me. We can look at these photographs, a brief moment frozen in time, and ponder the lives lived.

I have old family photos scattered throughout my home. One of my favorites is my Polish grandfather's basketball team from 1933 (he's on the bottom far right). My grandfather, Henry Tiska, sent the photo to me as a postcard with his shaky handwriting on the back stating, "Tell me what you have in mind when you finish school. You think I'll ever see you again." I was still in college and very much in my own world (having recently made plans to move across the country to Seattle with close friends after graduation without any real job prospects-horrifying to my parents, of course). I had no doubt I would see my grandfather again, and I did. I just didn't yet realize how fleeting our time is with those we love and when he was gone, it took us all by surprise. I love having this photo of my grandfather in his youth. His words make me miss him, but the photo makes me smile, seeing this young version of a man I knew only as a much older man. Looking at this photograph fills me with memories of a life well lived and a grandfather my sister and I adored.

We're all fortunate to have photographs in our lives that capture memories in such a tangible way. I have an album full of old family photographs collected by my mother -- faces and times gone, but not forgotten. I cherish this book of photographs which holds photos of my biological father, Lee Haas, lost much too young in Vietnam, my grandmother, Anne Zygmont, in a very formal family portrait as a young child with an oversized bow in her hair, my nana, Jean Taylor Handy, being held by her brother, Donald and my great aunt Binnie's childhood friend, Alexander, sitting on a pinto pony brought around the neighborhood for just such photo opportunities. Photographs to me are a preserved record for us to hold in our hands, a way to remember the importance of what and who has come before us. My hope is that I am able to pass this appreciation for the past along to both of my young daughters.

Perusing the Yankee Index

rss@ypi.com (Justin Shatwell) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Yankee has been publishing stories since 1935. Occasionally the need arises for us to go back and find one in particular. This is always a nightmare.

The trouble is that Yankee Magazine doesn't have a single, comprehensive index. For the years 1935-1978, we have a slick, professional, hardbound index that is the envy of the modern staff. Between 1979-2002, it appears editors compiled their own rough indexes on a yearly basis. Printed out copies of these (God only knows where the original files are) can be found in two white binders that are revered and guarded like the treasures they are. For stories later than 2002, our only resource is the memory of our editor, Mel Allen.

All three of these sources have significant blind spots (sorry, Mel), and the likelihood of actually finding what you're looking for is about 50/50. These wild goose chases have a redeeming quality, however. It turns out that the Yankee indexes are gold mines of unintentional humor. For instance, here are a few samples entries found under dog.

Dog

Chris, dog that could predict future, do math, spell, June 87, p. 126

His fall through the ice breaks the ice for his owner, who makes new friends, Jan 98, p. 112

Trained to seek termites and ants in buildings, May 86, p. 14

Newfoundland, found swimming in ocean, psychic ability of, June 57, p. 38

As little sense as these entries make, as a Yankee editor, I know exactly what these stories are. These are what we politely refer to as "Yankee Stories."

Not every story that runs in Yankee is a "Yankee Story." The term is reserved for stories that are a little bizarre, a little cryptic, or those that are just plain crazy. My recent feature, "The Memory Keeper," fell into this category. When I originally pitched the idea at one of our meetings, I had a hard time explaining it to my co-workers. "It's like genealogy, but...you know...exciting!" Yankee Story. I had a similar experience with my short profile on FetchStix. "It's great guys, they sell maple sticks as boutique dog toys!" Yankee Story.

Yankee Stories are the stories that other magazines won't run. They're the ones whose appeal is not immediately self-evident. They're the risky ones, the ones that might fall apart, the ones we know we should say no to, but we just love too much. In order to understand and appreciate a Yankee Story, you have to really engage with it and trust the writer enough to allow them to take you to some very strange places, all with the promise that it will make sense in the end. The only reason we're able to get away with running these is that, unlike many magazines, we have a readership that actually enjoys reading (thanks for that, by the way).

These are the stories that make Yankee unique. They're compelling, thought provoking, daring, and, unfortunately, hard to summarize. As a result, our index is littered with entries like

Ghost, dead woman's slipper found by bicyclist at Mass. Inn, Oct. 66, p. 66

and

Christmas, St. Croix Island 1604, probably one of most miserable ever celebrated in North America, Dec. 91, p. 98

and

Parker, Arthur H., First Atom Bomb, The, humor, Jan. 47, p. 24.

Our profiles are by far the most quizzical. Over the last 76 years we've brought readers into the lives of the likes of:

Hoffman, Winona Ayers, the birthday lady, observes over 3,000 birthdays and anniversaries of relatives and friends each year, Sept. 90, p. 19

Kerslake, S. Fred, pig trainer, Feb. 70, p. 136

Holden, Joseph, belief in flat, stationary earth, Feb. 75, p. 72

and by far my favorite entry,

Hunter, Alfred J., murderer of wife, steals plane and fires on Boston citizens for hours, May 90, p. 76

(You can read that last one here. It's just as bizarre as it sounds.)

Flipping through the Yankee indexes always gives me a sense of belonging. I think about how the next time we create an index, my own stories will be reduced down to meager, out of context snippets that some future writer will giggle at during a slow day at the office. Our staff is just the current iteration of a legacy of very odd writers and incredibly indulging editors who have made Yankee what it is today. That's something to be proud of, I think. Or perhaps I've just read way too much into this.

Inside the Art Department

rss@ypi.com (Lori Pedrick) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Back in 2007, Yankee was looking for a new art director. I'd just seen a presentation on the magazine's recent redesign from digest to full size at a conference in Denver, Colorado. I liked what I was seeing with the redesign, the direction they were going in, and had a feeling it would be a good fit for the next step in my career. I was excited about the opportunity. I sent in my r�sum� and quickly got a call from the editor, Mel Allen. After some back-and-forth and a few design tests, I was invited for a visit.

I remember the day I interviewed. I flew up from Philadelphia, where I'd been working for Philadelphia magazine and off-site for its sister publication, Boston magazine. It was a hot and humid day in Philly. As I stepped off the plane at the Manchester, New Hampshire, airport, I was greeted by Mel, who graciously escorted me to Dublin, home of Yankee's offices. Not knowing that this was to become my future home, too, I was taken aback by the beauty surrounding me. Coming from the 36th floor of a high-rise in Center City Philadelphia, this red-barn atmosphere would be a welcome change. I began work on September 28, 2007. Seems like yesterday, really.

Here we are today, almost four years later. Yankee is ever-changing and ever-evolving, even if it's met its fair share of resistance. I mean that in a positive way: Never before have I worked for a publication that had such loyal and vocal followers. It's awesome how passionate our readers are. You support us, you challenge us, you keep us on our toes. And what a template to have as a designer. It was an honor to be trusted with this position and to hold the future of its image in my hands: this iconic magazine that's loved by so many. I think most of my excitement with coming to Yankee was knowing that it had such deep roots. The brand is so rich. I thought, I must be very careful not to spoil the image it's spent so many years developing.

I've spent hours trying to figure out ways to modernize Yankee while still preserving its brand: a challenge I face every day. I look back at the old issues and strive to find ways to reflect the flavor that once graced the pages of this institution: wonderfully original works of art commissioned to illustrate stories about our region; the various styles of medium and technique. I respect it all so much, and I strive to bring that flare back one day. I truly do get it: how important the visual mission was then and how important it is now and ever will be. I strive to bridge the gap each day.

Having gained a good deal of experience and knowledge of New England from working at Boston magazine, my transition from Philadelphia was fairly simple. I'd already had years of experience working with the region's finest photographers and stylists. It was important to me that those connections be there when deciding on my transition to Yankee. I can't tell you how great it is to work with such talented artists who love New England so much. It's a terrific community and one I'm so proud to be a part of.

We recently hosted one of the teachers from the Hallmark Institute of Photography here for a visit. He wanted to interview Heather Marcus, our photo editor, and myself and include the footage in a video he was creating as a tool for his students on how to pitch a story to a magazine. It was a really great experience. I tried to offer my best tips for the young and aspiring, even though to some, I, too, am young and aspiring. Nevertheless, we tried to give some pointers that might help the brave ones who dare to enter this competitive field.

Our interviewer asked whether I felt that the best of a photographer's work was a result of skill or vision. I believe it's both. Skill and/or technique is what sets one photographer apart from another, but vision is foundation. It got me to thinking, and what resonates for me is that I fundamentally believe that all creative people are influenced by their surroundings and experiences. That's what helps create vision; at least I find that profoundly true in what I do. The people we meet, the places we see, and so forth all play a part in our visual mission. That sets the precedent; at least I think it's true in publishing. A magazine's esthetic and visual brand have a lot to due with the intent to project a message -- a look and a feeling that mirror its purpose and/or surroundings.

For instance, when I was getting ready to take over the role of art director at Yankee, I was leaving the slick city life, where some would say it's cluttered, congested, and busy -- a lot like New York. New York magazine does a great job of offering loads of information in a compact space -- a brilliantly designed compact space. Its image reflects its surroundings. A lot of what I was experiencing moving to New England was the beautiful, open, airy countryside -- a vast contrast with my previous environment. That began my visual mission for what I felt was the natural fit for Yankee's esthetic: clean and pure; relaxing; for me, a respite from that busy, busy life; and, of course, the fundamentals that are inherently Yankee -- tradition, history, nostalgia.

You may be asking why I'm going into all of this, since a lot of it seems perhaps unimportant to some. The truth is, as a reader, you're not supposed to know that any of this is going on. I wanted to share it with you, though, in hopes that the next time you pick up a magazine, you'll understand all that has gone into producing it and know that every word, every phrase, every image, has been carefully thought out and strategically placed just for you.

The world of art and design is so subjective. It's difficult to please everyone. I love what I do and I'm lucky to have a job that I'm so passionate about. I hope I've given you a little insight into who I am and what I'm about. Being a transplant to New England, I realize that some folks will never consider me a true Yankee -- but I'm happy knowing that I get to spend each day trying to be.

More postings to come from Yankee's art director in just a few weeks.

Note: Heath Robbins was kind enough to take this lovely family portrait. For more on his work, go to: heathrobbins.com