A Compilation of her
Letters from the Editor
1998 through 1999
From
Radiance Fall 1998
Hi Friends,
Wow!
Your responses to our Summer swimsuit edition have been fabulous, simply
fabulous! Your calls, e-mails, and notes scrawled on renewal cards are a
pleasure to read. Thank you. I knew you’d enjoy all the
readers’ swimsuit photos, the powerful comebacks to rude
remarks, the personal essays, and our interviews with three big Broadway
stars. I could hardly wait for you to get this issue. I was bursting
with excitement as my staff and I worked on it!
This
Fall issue is an important issue for me. It marks the start of our
fourteenth year in print. (Not bad considering one out of one hundred
magazines makes it.) I’m amazed, I’m thrilled, I’m humbled, and
I’m blessed to be a part of something that touches so many people’s
lives. We truly are in this together. Your lives—your voices, your
visions, your struggles, and your successes—help fuel this work. You
inspire me. I am continually honored to read your words and share in
your lives. Thank you.
I also
thank my talented, devoted, and passionate staff and writers for all
they’ve given to make our magazine as good as it is and to help our
office run as smoothly as it does. I am proud of what
Radiance has grown to become, with its diversity, its honesty, and
its heart.
While
I’m thanking people, I’d like to take a moment to thank my friends
for their generosity, trust, compassion, and humor, and for sharing the
ins and outs of our lives.
And to
Willie, my cat of nine years, whose love, comfort, companionship, and
sweet self are pure joy. The gratitude list continues. Friends of
Radiance—people and groups who’ve made donations to us this past
year—are listed inside each Fall issue. Thanks to everyone who has
helped us in this way. Please, keep your support coming when your
resources allow. Every
contribution helps.
Special
acknowledgement and thanks go to a longtime
Radiance reader, Radiance
Tour enthusiast, and all-around good
person, Donna Johnston. In the past year she contributed a large
financial gift to
Radiance in an effort
to, as she said, and I quote, “support the creative people in my
life” and “to help you [Alice] get a little relief from expenses so
you can focus on
Radiance’s
expansion. . . .” Thank you, thank you, thank you, Donna. Your
generosity, spirit of sharing, and goodwill helped create
bigger, more colorful, and more widely distributed Summer
and Fall issues. I hope your giving made you feel wonderful. If
anyone else out there wants to feel wonderful, please . . . give me a
call! We have a lot more growing to do!
This
issue is also important to me because of the articles for our Kids
Project, like the interview with therapist Jane Hirschmann and the essay
from Michael Loewy, Ph.D., professor of counseling, on supporting fat
children in the schools. Please, share these articles with your kids’ school
personnel—the principal, resource staff, guidance counselors, teachers
(especially P.E. teachers!). Share them with other parents as you see
fit. Share the Radiance Kids Project with your friends who work with
kids. The word has got to get out. Steps
have to be taken to ensure that
all kids—whatever their size, shape, or situation in life—feel
safe, loved, supported, and valued for who they are. If you have ideas
for our ongoing Kids Project, please call, write, e-mail, or come visit
and talk with me! Your input, ideas, and resources are needed. Let’s
act now. There’s no time like the present.
In this
anniversary issue, we will thrill you with Gloria Cahill’s interviews
of Camryn Manheim and Michael Badalucco of ABCs
The Practice. I am so impressed with both these stars of substance! And check out Images. Quite a nice variety of fashion, don’t
you think? You can expect more colorful fashion pages in upcoming
issues. I especially want to thank those manufacturers and retailers who
cater to the supersize among us (one third of the large-size market, did
you know?). Readers, let
these companies and others you call from our pages know that you found
them through Radiance. Happy shopping!
Coming
up in Winter, B. Shanewood (author of the powerful story “Red Line”
in our Spring 1998 issue) interviews size-acceptance activist Lynn
McAfee. Formerly of the Fat Underground, McAfee is now active on the
Council on Size & Weight Discrimination with
Radiance columnist William J. Fabrey and others. We’ll hear her
tales of activism within the medical and obesity research communities.
She also shares her personal health experiences as a supersize woman.
Another
of our fine writers, Marina Wolf, interviews national food writer Jane
Stern. Along with her
husband, Michael, Jane Stern has written more than two dozen books and
countless articles, most of them about the foodways, highways, and weird
ways of America. Wolf also reviews favorite cookbooks just in time for
the “cooking therapy” we sometimes need on those cold winter days.
Author Lynne Murray (author of Larger Than Death, a mystery reviewed in Radiance
Summer 1998) investigates sleuths of size as they’ve been
represented in mystery novels, and gives us a list of good reads. So
watch for us the end of December.
Before I
close, I want to encourage you to continue to find ways to heal,
nourish, and love yourselves on all levels—body, mind, and spirit.
Keep looking inside yourselves to see what dreams are asking to be
pursued, which relationships are calling to be developed, and what parts
of yourselves need to be expressed. Trust what comes. Step out. I’ve
found that my times strolling the pathways by the Bay after work, give
me the space I need to reflect and allow what’s inside to surface.
Nature is such a great
teacher. Plus, it feels good move my body, coaxing out the stiffness or
pain caused by a less active day. Being out in nature gives me the
opportunity to let go of the feelings and activities of the day and open
up to the insights I need for all areas of my life.
May you
find what you need this season to stretch your view of yourself. It’s
important to keep body size issues in perspective. Don’t let them
overshadow the other important and precious aspects that come together
to make you who you are. All parts of you deserve attention and
appreciation. Thank you for the gifts you share with me and with others
in your life.
With
this I welcome you to our Fall 1998, fourteenth anniversary edition.
Take
care,
Alice Ansfield
Founder, Editor, Publisher ©
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