One of the most fun parts of this work is meeting with writers. I can’t think of anything more important than finding, cultivating, and continuing to motivate the best writers in New England. The writer and editor relationship, when it works, is not unlike a friendship — you count on each other to bring out […]
yankee magazine
You’ll See More Changes
The March/April issue arrived here at Yankee Publishing a few days ago. Up until the time I can actually hold it in my hand, the issue is more a collection of separate pages, separate galleys that I see day after day posted on the wall of our conference room. Seeing a magazine take shape that […]
Anatomy of a Story
Every good story I have ever read, or written, always starts the same way: with curiosity. Without an intense need to ask questions, to understand, to know the lives of others, there may well be words on a page, but I doubt they would resonate with readers. “Fire on the Farm” — my column in […]
Surprises
Not long ago I assigned a “Big Question” interview. The subject of the interview was to be Dr. Dean Richardson, who had leaped into our consciousness as the vet who was performing medical miracles to keep Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro alive. Dr. Richardson, who graduated from Dartmouth, and whose parents live near to us here […]
The Eye of Heather Marcus
Yankee magazine’s photo editor has an eye for detail — and clarity and light and emotion, the way a writer has a “voice.”
8 Things for Readers to Do
An editor needs readers, of course, because without readers there’s no magazine. But beyond the obvious, Yankee‘s editors look forward to hearing from you, our readers, because for a long time you’ve been key contributors to our pool of ideas. So many times I’ve opened letters and found this line: “I want to tell you […]
Sneak Peek at the Spring Issue
Yankee‘s spring issue (March/April) leaves our Dublin, N.H., offices soon, on its way to the printing plant where in the next few weeks the intricate process of getting a magazine printed, bound, and on its way to readers takes place. This is a sneak peek. Of course I am close to the contents since I […]
Where Are the Snows of Yesteryear?
I am writing this on a January morning that feels as if spring has leaped into our midst while we were sleeping. I know many of us no doubt feel a twinge of guilt when we step outside without a jacket, look at blue skies, know that days like this in January may portend deep […]
Questions from Readers
New. A New Year. A New Yankee. What is not new is that Yankee‘s readers care. Big time. For the past few days my phone here has been ringing off the hook with loyal, faithful, readers, many of whom feel their longtime friend, Yankee Magazine, has gone away. At the moment, I am not their […]
The Story That Never Dies
It’s not possible to freeze old people in the beginning of winter, store them outside, almost naked, and then thaw them out in time to help with the spring planting. Is it? Well, in 1939, a Dr. Temple S. Fay of Philadelphia, who had done some experiments freezing human organs, gave a talk in Providence, […]
In this column last February, I recalled my old friend and barber, Bill Austin, telling me a joke I might use in a forthcoming speech I was to make at the local Women’s Club and assuring me that, no, I needn’t worry. It was clean. In fact, he said, it was so clean “you could […]
THE WEEKEND BEFORE Memorial Day is when a lot of wonderful commercial enterprises along the Maine coast open up for the summer tourist season. Bertha Nunan’s Lobster Hut, in the tiny fishing village of Cape Porpoise (just up from Kennebunkport), is a case in point. Multiple generations of Nunans have been hauling lobster traps off […]