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A young editor's
passion for Work
She's Diana Lind, 23. This is her first magazine.
By Marisa Hoheb
In many ways, magazines are a mature industry, certainly
compared with the internet. Yet the magazine business has an esteemed tradition of
inspiring and being inspired by the very young. They are the people who create so many of
the new titles and force older titles through change.
Diana Lind is one of those very young. She is 23, a graduate student, and on the
side she has created a magazine called simply Work.
Work launched several weeks ago to examine Lind's fascination with
employment and all the cultural nuances that go along with it. The premiere issue of
Work is 64 pages.
Work is a classic sort of launch by someone of Lind's age, funded from
her own shallow pockets, put together through the kindness and industry of friends, driven
by a clear vision but no real business plan, and created from a very personal
passion.
Why Work? Lind explains.
“I’ve always been fascinated by how much time work takes
up in people’s lives, but there didn’t seem to be any magazine on the market
that spoke to this personal interest of mine,” she says.
“I decided to create a title that examines the culture of work and how
it gives us a context for identity--but that doesn’t sound pretentious.”
She got the idea for Work three years ago when she was searching newsstands
for magazines and found only titles that she dismissed as glossy, bubble-headed
publications trumpeting hedonism and celebrity.
She found nothing that she felt talked to people of her age and
education and values.
“I was definitely bored with all the lifestyle magazines out there. When
I first came up with the idea of a magazine about work, it was more of a joke,” she
says.
That was back in college. Lind graduated from Cornell in December 2002
and is currently an MFA student at Columbia.
“Last fall I went up to visit Cornell during homecoming, and one of my
old friends was like, ‘Hey, did you ever get that magazine you were talking about off
the ground?’”
That got Lind going. She was then working full-time as an editorial assistant
for the Architectural Record. She began researching the art of magazine creation.
“I snuck into journalism lectures and listened to other people who had
started their own magazines,” she says. She also solicited advice from industry
veterans, including Victor Navasky, editorial director and publisher of The Nation.
The first issue of Work, which premiered Sept. 13 at a well-attended launch
party in Brooklyn (“Drew Barrymore supposedly showed up, but I didn’t see
her,” says Lind), posits the concept of work as something to be discussed, debated,
played with.
Its eclectic table of contents offers interviews with the founder of the
Freelancers Union and the Korean owner of a 24-hour deli, a look at the evolution of
office fashion, and a photo essay about Nevada brothels.
One esteemed contributor: frequent New Yorker business and economics writer
James Surowiecki, whose recent book “The Wisdom of Crowds” Lind cites as a
favorite read.
“The editorial tone of Work is really a mixed bag, because it’s
meant to appeal to any ambitious twenty- or thirty-something living in a city,” she
says.
Lind, who financed the first ad-free issue out-of-pocket, plans to publish
quarterly and will distribute Work online (at www.work-magazine.com) and at independent
bookstores in New York City.
She hopes to make the second issue, slated for a mid-January release,
available in other cities as well.
Lind credits a network of generous, dedicated friends as the reason the title
even launched.
“Nobody is getting paid for what they do right now. But a lot of
my friends – from college or elsewhere – are writing articles and helping out
with the logistics of the magazine,” she says.
Lind spends several hours every day on Work, in addition to classes and
socializing (“Shocking but true – I do still have a life!”). She meets
weekly with a five-member editorial board to plan future issues.
One of the board’s upcoming projects: shopping Work, with a current
print run of 2,000, to advertisers. “It’s going to end up being a lot of
local advertising at first, since we’re mainly distributing in New York City,”
Lind says.
But she’s currently looking to hire an ad consultant with the hope of
picking up national advertisers as well.
“I’m hoping to get some of the bigger-name advertisers that
currently appear in the so-called liberal or progressive magazines on the market,”
she says. Lind says she is extremely heartened by the positive response Work has received
thus far.
“I’d love for this to become a full-time job,” she says.
“I could see myself doing this for 10 more years.” |
Oct. 5, 2004 © 2004 Media Life
- Marisa Hoheb is a staff writer
for Media Life.
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