About

Kiefer Sutherland, at the height of his 24 fame, was on the cover of Rolling Stone in April 2006. When I asked if I could get it, I was immediately shot down. The profile on Sutherland held profanities I had yet to hear at 14 and my parents worried about the content of the rest of the articles. So, they bought me another Nancy Drew book and moved on.

I did not.

I used my allowance to purchase Rolling Stone Issue 998 and snuck it into my house. I was fascinated not only with the format (gloss paper large format 10×12 magazine) but also the unabashed storytelling techniques. It was like nothing I had ever read before. Shortly thereafter my mother caught me and took away my copy; she wasn’t a fan of Sutherland smoking a cigarette on the cover.

Luckily, she realized the true impact of reading that issue of RS and saved it. I would get that issue back in my senior year of high school. The ban on RS had been lifted for years, I hadn’t picked up smoking for reading about Sutherland smoking and had been reading other magazines anyway. But, as I was applying to university and figuring out my next steps, re-reading that issue of RS reminded me of my love of unconventional storytelling and my want to see my name published.

This blog is to better understand the industry that brought me to journalism. Magazines have so many different facets — large and small circulation, regional and national, print or online or print/online, the list goes on. Still, it is an industry unknown to the outside world. Like that issue of RS did for me, I want to open up a different world for my readers.

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