Interview with
Shanna Germain
Interview by Jenna Glatzer
Shanna
Germain is the managing editor of Nervy Girl, a bimonthly independent magazine
founded in 2000. Each 56-page issue contains articles, essays, poetry, and
fiction. Last year, they won the Utne Reader award for best new zine...
and you can see why if you check out their website. Touted as the
"thinking woman's magazine," Nervy Girl doesn't contain "10 tips
to firm your buttocks" or "how to tweeze your eyebrows like Julia
Roberts." Nope, this little magazine actually dares to have
substance.
Tell me how Nervy Girl began.
Nervy Girl began as the brainchild of our publisher, Kristin Schuchman. Tired of seeing "women's magazines" that offered nothing more than sex tips and weight-loss tactics, she decided to start a magazine that assumed women wanted more information about the world around them. So, she placed an ad in a local Portland paper that invited women to come to a meeting and help create a feminist women's magazine.
What made you decide to show up at that first meeting?
Actually, it's funny now, but I almost didn't go. Honestly, it was the word
"feminist" that threw me off - I'd had some negative experiences at feminist poetry readings and writing groups where I didn't feel like I fit in because I wasn't "radical enough" or I was too feminine. But I was really excited about the idea of a 'thinking magazine' for women, and I thought, "what if I miss out on something great?" And, it turned out, I would have: Everyone there was open-minded and just as excited as I was about creating something that women wanted to read.
What sets Nervy Girl apart from other women's magazines?
Well, we laughingly say that it's because we won't tell women what shade of lipstick to wear or give them twenty tips for thinner thighs. But, really, I think our goal is to inform and empower women, whatever lifestyle they choose. In the past, we've had articles on the welfare marriage proposal, biker chicks, mail-order brides, Winona LaDuke and Queen Noor of Jordan. You name it
-- if it's of interest to women, we want to cover it in a way that is interesting, informative, and maybe even a little controversial. If dialogue arises among our readers -- if they're talking it over with their co-workers at lunch or their partners before bed -- then we feel like we're on track.
Each issue also has a broad theme, so we can explore topics in depth. Past issue topics have included reproductive health, independence, travel and erotica. We did an Islam issue back in the spring of 2001 that really garnered a lot of attention. For this coming year, we have issues planned around crime, mental health and science/technology.
What do you do in your role as managing editor?
Well, I'm really lucky, because I get to work with a core group of six great women who plan and put the magazine together from start to finish. We've all been part of the magazine since the very beginning, although our roles keep shifting and changing as we grow. We don't have office space or anything like that
-- we mostly work off of our publisher's kitchen table -- so I do a lot of organizing via
e-mail and the phone. And of course, lots of content and copy editing. I also lead the (very-long!) planning meetings, where we look at all of the queries and decide which writers and pieces we want to include to make the whole issue flow properly. I also deal most directly with the writers
-- working to make sure they understand what we're asking of them, helping them get their writing in top shape, sending out their contracts and answering any questions they might have.
Basically, it's a labor of love and a group-run magazine, so we all pitch in where we can. Sometimes delivering the issue, sometimes participating in community events, sometimes licking and stuffing envelopes, whatever needs to be done!
How has this magazine built its subscribership so far?
Well, we started by convincing all of our mothers, aunts and female friends that they needed to buy one! Since then, it's been a lot of word of mouth and word of press. We've had a few articles written about us, and we got a lot of subscriptions when we won the
Utne Reader award for Best New Zine of 2001. We're even in a few libraries around the world now, which is really amazing. Women seem to be so grateful to find something that speaks to them -- we get a lot of thank you letters with our subscription orders.
Why did you decide it should be free in Portland?
There were a couple of reasons. First, it had to do with getting our distribution numbers up so that advertisers would see us as a viable market. Also, Portland is our home-base, and people here have been wonderfully supportive, so it's nice to be be able to give back.
I think another big reason is that we want to try and bridge the class-created information gap. So often, knowledge truly is power, and those who can't afford knowledge face an uphill battle to become empowered. Women who are in a tight financial situation may not have the money to plunk down five bucks for a magazine at the store, but when the information is free, all they have to do is read it.
What are some of the challenges of starting a new, independent magazine?
Oh, boy, where do I start? It's funny, because we started a Nervy Girl book club around the same time we started the magazine, and one of the first things we read was a collection of essays called, "Listen Up: Voices from the New Feminist Generation." One of the essays in there was all about this group of women who tried to make a college 'zine, and how the floor basically fell out from under them. There were power struggles, class and race struggles, differences in
vision... I remember thinking, "well, that will never happen to us." But then it did - some of the women wanted us to be more radical, others were concerned that we were pushing the envelope too much.
In the end, we tried to stay true to our vision of what we wanted the magazine to be. And we've had to learn to communicate, to be honest and critical and yet supportive of each other. We all realize that we want to same thing - for
Nervy Girl to succeed - but we sometimes come at that goal from different perspectives.
We face a new challenge every issue -- staying afloat is always the biggest concern, of course. Our publisher sells all our ads, which usually cover the cost of printing, mailing subscriptions, incidentals and sometimes even a pizza for our all-night planning meetings! In our publisher's spare room, we have one computer, one printer, and one desk with a rickety old chair, so needless to say we work from home a lot. We do almost all of our editing and copyediting over the
Internet, which explains why we're all e-mail addicts. And of course, we've had those issues where our printer would only print smiley-faces or our copyeditor got the chicken pox, and we've had to work around that.
How do you provide support for new writers?
Most of our editors have been writers at one time or another, so we know what it's like to be on that side: a big scary world, where you're never sure if you're doing or saying the right thing, keeping your fingers crossed that you don't get another rejection, or that, if you do get something accepted, the editor doesn't slash it all to pieces on you.
We're always aware of that when we're working with writers, so we try to make the whole process a positive experience. First, all of the editors read all of the queries. If a writer has a good idea, but seems a little uncertain how to get it onto paper, we try to lead them in the right direction and offer suggestions and comments. Of if they're concerned about doing an interview, we'll go over some possible questions with them. I often offer suggestions on rejection letters too, ways that they could try again next time and be a little closer to getting a
"yes."
We have a long, convoluted way of editing that I think is really helpful for writers as well. At least three of the editors look at each piece and offer comments and suggestions. Then the piece goes back to the writer for
his or her rewrite. Then she or he sends it back to us, we all look at it again, make any necessary changes, and then it all goes back to the author one more time for
final approval. This way, the writer gets to be involved in the editing process, learning how to make their work stronger, and they also get to make sure we didn't change their meaning or cut something in a way they didn't want.
I understand you're not a paying market for writers (or editors!) yet, but that you have plans to be in the future-- hopefully funded by a business loan. What do you need to do to get a business loan?
We have just spent the last six months or so putting together a business plan. I shouldn't say we, actually -- our business manager Letha Tawney has done all the hard work on that end. So, once that's finished, we go to banks and show them that we've managed to put out this magazine for almost two years with nothing more than a computer, an idea and a lot of hard, hard work. We're hoping to get enough money to get an actual office and start paying our staff.
How would you respond to the critics who say that you shouldn't ask writers to work for free?
As a writer myself, I would say they're absolutely right! Which is one of the major incentives for us trying to get a business loan. It's very important that we can support the women who are involved with
Nervy Girl by providing them with a living wage. Really, once we start paying, we hope it will be the ideal job situation for women writers
-- they can work from home, on their own time, which is really nice if they have kids or live far away.
In the meantime, I think that not being able to pay our writers is one of necessity.
Nervy Girl is currently all volunteer run -- it's a labor of love even for the publisher and the editors. So it's not like someone is making money while the writers suffer. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for all the people who volunteer for us. And I really do think we're offering a service to women
-- in fact, we talked about becoming a non-profit, but decided not to because the process was so intense and we didn't have the time or the people power.
Also, many of our writers find that we publish pieces they wouldn't be able to sell elsewhere, or we cover topics they're interested in that no one else would tackle. Others get internship credit for their work, or use us as a stepping stone for bigger publications. Of course, the writers who have written for us for free in the past will get our loyalty when we start paying, so their hard work will pay off in that way too.
Where do you see Nervy Girl, and your role, in five years?
Our hope is to take Nervy Girl monthly starting in January 2003, to bring our editors on as full-time paid staff, to pay our writers and photographers and to get more national distribution. Of course, that is all contingent on whether we get a business loan! Other than that, our hope is to keep getting bigger and better -- we want to be a resource for all women, a supportive, interesting, informative community on paper.
Anything else you'd like to add?
I think that zines are changing the world right now -- opening doors and raising the volume on voices that need to be heard, on information that needs to be shared. We're just so grateful to be part of this thing that is bigger than ourselves, and for all the people who have worked to make it happen.
Nervy Girl's website is www.nervygirlzine.com.
For their full guidelines, please send an e-mail to: submit@nervygirlzine.com
Jenna Glatzer is a nationally-published
freelance writer and the editor-in-chief of Absolute Write. She is the
author of three e-books for writers:
The More Than Any Human Being Needs To
Know About Freelance Writing Workbook (www.absolutewrite.com/workbook.htm)
Sell The Fun Stuff: Writers' and
Artists' Market Guidelines For Greeting Cards, Posters, Rubber Stamps, T-shirts,
Aprons, Bumper Stickers, Doormats, and More! (www.absolutewrite.com/greetingcard.htm)
and Animal and Nature Markets (http://tinyurl.com/k35).
