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.)