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.)