All the joys of the season

We're still going about our business-as-usual at NQ HQ, but we will be taking some Christmas time over the next week. So this is the last posting for the year; we'll see you in 2012! In the meantime, enjoy this Kate Rusby song, which is hitting a high note on this season's soundtrack.

(Image: www.paintinghere.com)

Distribution day

Today we'll be making our rounds of the retailers, dropping off caches of NQs hither and yon: Afterwords, Johnny Ruth, the Heritage Shops, The Rocket Bakery. We'll be in the mail to a few spots around the island and up to Labrador, too. Some people come right to the source - our office - and of course we're the ones to contact for your gifts. Three calls as soon as we unlocked the office doors this morning, which gives us that nice, warm, look-at-us-we're-helping-Santa kind of feeling.

(image: bigcartel.com.)

Countdown to Winter Issue

Just three more sleeps and they'll be delivered from the printers. Give us a turnaround day for labels and notes and gift cards, and they'll be on their way to you. Will you love the cover as much as we do? (Still trying to keep it a surprise, although hint hint it's a gorgeous piece by one of our best-known artists.) What about our anchor piece, an extensive interview with - with - but, no, we'll try to keep that under gold-foil-Christmas-paper wraps for now. But we hope you feel as excited holding the new NQ your hands as we did putting it together!

(Image: Count Dracula of Sesame Street, ucsc.edu.)

In the spirit of the Season

This time of year the NQ likes to step up for Santa; our cards and booths and banners are all about gift giving (and, of course, a chance to win the gorgeous Jean Claude Roy landscape painting). We've two Fairs down and one more to go and the pace has been pretty steady.

(Image: yowzers.com.)

Almost to the printers, and ready for the road

We're going to press with the Winter Issue, we're going to the Mail Room with supplies for the Corner Brook Craft Fair - our office is all about the logistics today. Where's the new usb code for the cover? What about ribbon for our Christmas bundles? And bows for our calendars? Last minute proofing wrapped in tasteful vintage paper.

(Image: colourlovers.com.)

Fair weather

There were a couple of topics of conversation around the NQ booth at the Craft Fair - one was how much people enjoyed the last Language issue (thanks!); the other was the run of calm, cool, sunny November days we were gifted with. Speaking of gifts, we still have the Corner Brook event and the Anna Templeton Tea & Fair on our agenda; perhaps we'll catch you there?

(Image: newbloodart.com.)

There's a certain art to managing this time of year*

Talk about your work/work balance. These couple of weeks, the production line for the Winter Issue converges with the set-up & operational schedule for the fairs, creating a veritable 'perfect storm' of details that must be finessed, fact-checked, finagled into shape and/or otherwise dealt with by NQ central.

(Image: typepad.com.)

*Beautiful art work on our upcoming cover, too - wait until you see!

Treats & a pumpkin patch

Preoccupied as we are with production details and marketing ideas and booth measurements and travel itineraries, today's significance hasn't escaped us, and we have stocked up on mini KitKats, Coffee Crisps and boxes of Smarties for the potential visitation of Jedi Knights, ballerinas and vampires (Twilight-, not Count Dracula-style). Halloween has gotten slightly overblown - and strangely adult-oriented - lately; just our opinion, but, then again, we never saw any need to venture beyond the two-holes-cut-in-a-bedsheet Ur-costume. Surely there's still room for the classics, like a Ray Bradbury story or a Peanuts special?

(image: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, internetmonk.com.)

Gearing up for the fairs

We're deep into Craft Fair logistics; designing a new banner so our booth defines 'eye-catching'; organizing magazines and treats to compose our famed 'Christmas bundles'; and figuring our how to get our gorgeous subscription prize, Jean Claude Roy's Happy Valley, Goose Bay (2011) (which shows, we've been told, the Moravian church) safely to and fro not just the St. John's event but the 'do in Corner Brook as well.

(image: favouriteideas.com.)

Oh, and we have our next cover selected, too...

Framing the performing arts

While we're avidly waiting to see what our contributors submit for our "Performing Arts" issue, our own in-house writing is coming along as well. As mentioned before, MUN's Performing Arts Archives is a gold mine (and an apt and safe repository for those scripts, programs, papers and ephemera you may yourself have created or collected). We could do an issue on the posters alone.

(Image: acinl.ca.)

Start saving those dates

Our copy and ad deadline reminders are circulated; we like to give contributors a nudge about a month in advance, as this tends to stave off last minute panicking. A month from now we'll be knee-deep in filed prose, and also embarked on that time of year known as Craft Fair Season. Amazingly, it's on our marketing horizon already & again. This time next November we'll be halfway through the St. John's event. Might want to mark your own calendars (oh, and we'll have our new 2012 calendars on offer).

(Image: us123.rf.com.)

NQ branches out

One of the noted dates on the campus social calendar is the Pratt Lecture, and last Saturday novelist and former writer-in-residence Jane Urquhart did the honours. She talked about houses, actual, historical, and imaginary, and the architecture they lend to fiction (Thornfield Hall, anyone?). A reception followed, giving the NQ a chance to hobnob, and chat up the Fall Issue. Monday morning of course sees us back in the office and poised for another week of writing, editing, and creatively constructing the upcoming magazine.

(Image: abebooks.com.)

Storyboard

Researching the Performing Arts for our next issue is, of course, nothing but fun, especially since the CNS Special Collection of Performing Arts Archives is so close, next door even. Lots of wonderful stuff in here; the problem is what to chose?

(Image: poster for The Queen of Paradise's Garden, from andyjonesproductions.com.)

Pen in hand, we approach the drawing board

We'd be hard-pressed to pick the one aspect of producing the NQ that is the most fun, but selecting themes would definitely be up there. At that point, the magazine is a blank slate, a Tabula rasa if you will. Then, viola!, we have an idea and the issue begins to come into focus, features suggest themselves, motifs emerge. This is our moment, now, as we look ahead to Fall and think: The Performing Arts...

(Image: flickr.com.)

Coming soon

A sneak preview of a website special:

(Images, Jared Reid, with permission from Cirque du Soliel.)

NQ in the mail & on the air

It's a big day at NQ Central, what with the brand new Fall issues coming from the printers within the hour, and an interview scheduled later today with the lovely Ted Blades for CBC's On The Go. NQ subscribers, keep an eye on your mailbox, and radio listeners, open your ears around 4pm today and you'll get the intel on the latest magazine.

(Image: girlontheright.com.)

To press, so relax

Time to clear away our pdfs and proofs, reference books and red pens. The Fall NQ is gone to print. Now we'll spend our time gathering up our lapsed subscribers; anyone who needs to renew after the Summer Issue is hearing from us - feel free to just give us a call, too, we've got time to chat!

(Image: wordpress.)

48 hours to presstime

Which leaves us pressed for time! Always one more copy edit, one more visual enhancement. At this point, the "em-dash" versus "dash-dash" debate enters our dreams, and don't even ask us how we feel about indicating possessives for a name ending in "s". Better minds than ours (ie. Russell Smith in The Globe and Mail) tackle such issues on our behalf.

(Image: farmcollector.com.)

Third proof's a charm -

- and then we go for four, and then five...It's all in the details now, reviewing and finessing, adding touches of a fresh template, an editorial and design ballet, if you will.

(Image: wordpress.com.)

Fall issue ahoy!

Nothing like crafting a good issue of the NQ to distract one from the weather, we like to say. What's happening outside our windows may be best left unspoken of, but what's being filed, edited, reworked, polished, and matched with nifty illustrations for our Sept. 6 publishing date is worth a few words. In fact, it's all about words - how we use language, and what that usage turns around and says about us. Fascinating stuff, and we hope you'll think so, too. Just beginning to file it now, designing comes next...

(image: The Colour of Words, Wosene, ionandreipeucan.blogspot.com.)

Great reading + Great writing = Great issue

One way to look at it, for sure. Our dream is to produce a superb Fall Issue. Our goal is to assemble a wealth of material. And our copy deadline is one week away. (And we already have one knock-your-socks-off art feature ready to go.)

(Image: mypersonaltrainernyc.com.)

Styleguide ps 'n qs

"Travelling" or "traveling"? One space after a period, or two? (Huge fight raging through the pages of slate.com over this.) Oxford comma, anyone? (I'm a firm supporter, myself.) We're launched on our styleguide, and we are having fun. Completion date: Winter Issue.

(Image: greenchairpress.com)

We know 'em as pitchy-paws, ma'am

Here's a site for all hands interested in NL's special words and phrases, and of course it's proving a treasure trove for our Fall issue.

(Image: melanzani.com.)

Good day...

It's all about issue #441 here at NQ HQ; the span between our Summer and Fall magazines is actually our shortest production timeline of the year. September 6th is the publication day, and our feature writers, reviewers, columnists, and visual artists are busy as whatsits gathering their material. Even so, from time to time we've lifted our heads and noticed it seems to be, what's the word, sunny? Yes, that was it, sunny, sun, sunshine, an element completely deleted from the Newfoundland skies throughout June. (Labrador was largely spared.) Now it's finally shining on beloved pine clad hills. Enjoy.

(Image: blogspot.com.)

July 1, 1916

Image: wordpress.com

NQs en route

If you don't consider it officially summer until you can hold your Summer NQ in your hands, you won't have to wait much longer. The mail strike is over and the magazines are on the move. Lots of beautiful imagery (Brenda McClellan, Scott Goudie), pages and pages of great reading (Bob Hallett, Bert Riggs); soon you'll be able to dive right in.


(Image: fluiddesign.com.)

All labeled up but no place to go

We're printed, stickered, and arranged by postal code, stacked oh-so-neatly in covered plastic bins. Now all we need is the mail. Fingers crossed it will be this week. In the meantime we're already in pursuit of ideas for the next issue, which is about language, and especially about the Dictionary of Newfoundland English (30 years old next year!). So, we'd like to know: what word from the DNE would you like to see in more common use? My vote goes for "whizgigging", but, of course, there are lots more choices: "drash" (as is happening right now outside our windows); "peggin" (and we could need a few before the day's out, according to the forecast); "swab" (might be looking for one or two of those as well).

(Image: amazon.com.)

NQ publishing & David Blackwood speaking

Looks like it's all happening this Wednesday. First the Summer Issue gets delivered, so we'll be up to our elbows in address labels and mail bins. It's a busy process, aided by our now-traditional playing of Johnny Cash tunes. We usually turn the mailout around fairly efficiently, but we'll have an added impetus this week: David Blackwood is giving a lecture at The Rooms at 7pm. This is sure to be well worth attending; we were lucky enough to spend some time with his Black Ice at the AGO during last week's conference, and there'll be a write-up on that in the Fall Issue. Black Ice itself travels to The Rooms next summer. Blackwood's talk promises to increase the already keenly honed anticipation for that major exhibition.

(Image: today.mun.ca.)

Hobnobbing & fine art ahead

We have a couple of exciting days coming up: our first Magazines Canada Conference. We'll get to meet colleagues from across the country, discuss the focus and future of cultural magazines, compare and debate grammatical errors, all kinds of fun stuff. It will also be a chance for us to visit David Blackwood's superb new exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. We'll be putting some words and thoughts together about Black Ice, which travels to The Rooms next summer.

(Image: Fire Down on the Labrador, akimbo.)

And the NQ cycle keeps on going

The Summer NQ is in its last few days of proofing; at this stage it seems a continual round of reading and finding just one more spelling error - oh, and that footnote is formatted wrong - and can we even up these columns here? At the same time, work for the Fall issue is starting to come into the fold. The time between these two magazines is actually our shortest production span of the year. Won't give away the next theme yet; that's a surprise. Ditto for the cover. But maybe tune into CBC's On the Go, say over the next week or so. Might hear a thing or two of interest.

(Image: fashionblogtrends.com)

Musing on a theme

We're through a first edit of the Summer Issue, still placing text and scouting for imagery - and, also, thinking about the theme: Traditional Music and Dance. More specifically, a number of our writers ask the question: just what is traditional music? Is there some government department that officially stamps it thus? Does it matter who wrote it? What about who sings it? Fascinating questions, where this kind of music begins, and where it goes.

(Image: rysonsmusic.com.)

Dancing to our copy deadline, Summer Issue

Our features, essays and reviews are flying in from all over. On performing in Renews, preserving the intangibles of play, and decoding the artistic structure of Beijing Opera. Not to mention the efforts to obtain our cover image, a striking piece that turns out to be not as accessible as I had imagined. We'll see what we can file by end of day - you can weigh our efforts against what you hold in yours hands in a month or so.

(Image: willtogo.com.)

Cover models

We set the bar high with our Spring cover - the gorgeous Barbara Pratt painting, the jiffy new logo. Cover design is an art in itself, as you can see by these examples. We're determined to keep high standards, creating something exciting, so you might catch us visiting galleries and generally keeping our eyes peeled for that piece, that idea, that image that says NQ Summer.

(Image: blogspot.com.)

NQ written in red ink

This phase of NQ production finds us wandering from desk to desk, printout to printout, red pen in hand. The focus is on editing. Copyediting, which comes later, eliminates those typos and misused words that clutter the page and jar the eye. Editing tightens the prose, smooths out the textual wrinkles, and unifies the issue. It can't be too thorough. There's always something! Always.

(Image: antonyjohn.net.)

Forecasting an abundance of foil-wrapped eggs

We're coming up on Easter, which means a short break from the office, before we return all rested and ready to retackle the Summer Issue. Story suggestions for music and dance are harmonizing nicely, and we're also adding some literary notes to make for lovely reading. Safe holidays all, and we'll rendezvous in two weeks.

(Image: alaska-in-pictures.com.)

And on to the summer issue

Traditional music and dance offers a lot of fun possibilities for articles. Perhaps we'll run the goat, or work up a batch of ugly sticks. And we have to try and match this glorious cover:

(Image: Venus, by Barbara Pratt, 1999, private collection.)

Prize draw tomorrow

All things being equal and all going as planned, we'll be on the CBC Radio airwaves with Ted Blades tomorrow (On the Go), chatting about the new issue and drawing the name of the lucky winner of Jean Claude Roy's Grand Bruit. Russell Wangersky, who I'm proud to say is on the NQF Board, and who I'm happy to say has just added the Winterset to the growing list of awards he's won for his writing (fiction and non-fiction), will be our celebrity prize-drawer. So tune in!

P.S. Our spring issues are in the mail!

NQs gotta move

With the Spring issue due from the printers this Friday, we're gearing up for the mailout. We used to handle this all ourselves, arranging NQs in the bins, stacking them on a trolley (hugely noisy mode of transportation by the way, we might as well have strolled the corridors playing the accordion), and bringing them down to the mailroom. But the volume has outgrown the strength of our two-person office. A couple of issues ago, as we maneuvered the towering rickety bulk into the elevator, I thought, "You know, this is an accident waiting to happen. This is what people mean when they say: That's an accident waiting to happen." So, now the movers come and do this for us.
And, of course, we're making arrangement for our prize draw. More on that next week...

(image: worldgallery.co.uk.)

24 hours and five minutes to press time

It's coming down to the wire now, a last few hours to make sure our nouns match our verbs, our photos are properly captioned, our (freshly designed) Contents page reading as it should (this editor's private recurring nightmare). This time tomorrow we'll be about five minutes from filing to the printers...think I'll doublecheck that that hyphen on page 44 has been changed to a dash. And that we're consistent with our "per cents" (not "percents"). And that the white on the cover (you should see it! It's gorgeous.) has been tweaked just as the artist (you'll have to wait to learn who; it's a big surprise) wants it...

(Image: imagekind.com.)

Snakes & the banishing of

Tomorrow we start our proofing, a big day for us, but for most people this week's headliner event is St. Patrick's Day. I confess the day has never meant that much to me: nothing against the fascinating St. Patrick, of course, but it's the Sheila's Brush that tends to have more of an impact - as we can see right now, looking out our NQ office windows.

(Image: www.markdroberts.com.)

And the designing begins

Clean, fresh, and a little bit jazzy: that would be our visual goal.

(Image: Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie, oil on canvas, 1942-43.)

The last day of February...

...which means tomorrow is the first of March, which means there is one month left for our subscription contest. Press release: #1 on the to-do list. And it's one month 'till our Spring issue publishes so #2 of course is contacting our readers whose subscriptions have just lapsed - adding those "Time to Renew!" sticker reminders to the NQ sub cards works for some, but not for all, so we make it our job to email and call - this bunch being known to us as "the 438s". #3 is to continue with our gathering and editing material; we're especially excited about a piece coming from a certain prominent and celebrated author, whose name starts with Bernice and ends with Morgan; we can hardly wait to cast our editorial eyes over that.

(Image, by Rae Perlin, courtesy agnl, www.heritage.nf.ca.)

Here's to midterm

It's quiet around campus today...too quiet.
Well, though, what can we expect; it's midterm break. Those first exams are written and papers handed in, and the students are no doubt using this time wisely, studying and prepping for class and so on. Or, whatever. Midterm Break, that seasonal restorative, has inspired a number of films and even a poem by Seamus Heaney (emotional warning: it's not what you'd call chipper). Some other places even twin it with a Family Day, on the idea that anything that gets you through February is, well, a bit of a Godsend, frankly. You may also choose to hoist one of these.

(Image: elle.com.)

Where's my wandering parakeet?*

Perhaps you're mad about Valentine's Day, perhaps you're just mad that it is Valentine's Day, or perhaps you haven't noticed what day it is (except that it's three weeks to our Spring Issue copy deadline, of course). If you'd rather ignore the day altogether, that's your prerogative. But if you'd like to mark it, either solo or as part of a duet, then I say tuck yourself away from these February winds, raise a champagne toast to The Philadelphia Story (or whatever), and unwrap one or three red-foil-wrapped chocolate hearts.

(Image: 3.bp.blogspot.com.)
*Liz Imbrie, seeking an awol Macaulay Connor, TPS.

Fine tuning February

One month to copy deadline, and February is one quarter fini. It is hard to get through this time of year. I have been treating myself to nice flowers and great theatre - The Fights, Pains of Youth, The Drawer Boy - and next up are two pieces by Anton Chekhov, The Proposal and The Dangers of Tobacco, opening at the Basement Theatre Feb. 16. Plus I ordered Beethoven's Symphony no 7 - the 2nd movement is the piece of music that plays at the climax of The King's Speech, in case you were wondering; I was, so I asked my classical-music-playing sister. And the record Jason Statham plays whilst chilling between assassinations in The Mechanic? That would be Schubert's Trio in E-Flat, Op. 100. Culture, culture everywhere.

(Image: Schubert at the Piano, by Gustav Klimt.)

Seeds of NQ Spring

About five weeks until our copy deadline (March 7) and we've two great pieces already edited and filed and a batch more at various creative stages, from scrawl-on-a-post-it-inspiration to just-need-byline-info-and-we're-done. We've even sighted one potential cover image...with a couple of other possibilities floating around...the NQ will look gorgeous, for sure. Outside our magazine offices I can see the fresh white snow, the bare trees calm in the windless afternoon, the students walking with their hoods down, 'cause it's so mild. A bit of sunshine turning the Phys Ed facade into a warm buff tone. And, as people were saying at the gym yesterday evening, sure, for all that, it's been a halfway easy winter, and there's barely four months to go, five tops.

(Image: Jeanette Jobson, illustratedlife.blogspot.com.)

Sparks warmth

The NQ had a lovely time at Sparks this year - and the readings were recorded by CBC's Jamie Fitzpatrick for The Performance Hour, so you'll have (another) chance to catch them. The foyer, where we set up alongside Running the Goat, Walking Bird and Rattling Books, was festooned with balloons and feathers, the closing reception featured California pinot grigio, Chilean reds and herring, and even the weather more-or-less co-operated for most of the day. The sessions were packed; there's surely something very comforting about spending a winter Sunday being read to; comfort food for the ears.

(Image: winterinfisherhude.)

Great Big Acknowledgement

As part of the NQ's "Lives of Our Girls and Women" issue we thought to include a series of "Portraits", short bios on significant women in our history. We'll try and find some unsung heroines, but even prominent figures like Stella Burry and Margaret Duley deserve a shout-out as well. Just Googling "Famous Newfoundland and Labrador Women" throws up some intriguing names, including Demasduit, lately both a character in Kevin Major's new novel (New Under The Sun), and the inspiration for a song by Great Big Sea.

(Image: pastelpixels.com.)

P. S. Almost forgot - look for us at the Sparks Literary Festival this coming Sunday.

Lives of Our Girls and Women

A quiet, mild, public-transit-less January day, and high time to get the NQ in gear. First we'll start working through our submissions; we've already received a few articles on our theme (above). Then we'll set our printing schedule for the year, so our columnists, or house writers, can prepare their dulcet prose. And there is always something extra and unexpected that turns up and somehow brings the issue together: an image, a quote, a poem.

(Painting: Vermeer, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, mystudios.com.)

2011: Look About & Look Ahead

Two days before Old Christmas Day; still time for mummering, or to read (or watch John Huston's wonderful film adaptation of) James Joyce's The Dead. The weather outside the NQ office windows is uncommonly foggy and mild, which makes it hard to remember that it is a New Year, and we must move forward, perhaps propelled by 2011 plans for travel/education/enormous self-improvement. We'll start by sketching out our next issue, which currently consists of a green file folder studded with post-its of story ideas and suggestions, plus a glimmering of design-type notions, buds that will blossom in the spring.

(Image: oocites.com. I can't quite make out the signature: G. Loranger?)