Broccoli magazine’s new beginnings
Take a quick look at her publishing empire and you’ll see that Anja Charbonneau has an eclectic range of interests. “There isn’t necessarily a super speedy elevator pitch for what it is,” she admits, but there’s undoubtedly an aesthetic and philosophical strand that binds together Broccoli magazine (a magazine about weed), with Mushroom People (a magazine about fungi), and Snail World (two books of snail dioramas), and the Flower Oracle (a deck of flower-inspired tarot cards), and many other print-based projects.
They’re beautiful, but not in an simple way, and there’s often a sense of darkness lurking in the background. “Our aesthetic really lies between beautiful and strange,” she explains. “It’s like any Broccoli thing has been left to sit for a while. It’s like, if you took something and put it in the woods and then you came back in a few months to see how it’s doing.”
It feels entirely in keeping with this visual and philosophical approach that earlier this year she announced that she had decided to stop publishing Broccoli magazine. As she explains in the episode above, she planned ahead for it, making sure that all subscriptions were fulfilled and drawing Broccoli to a close on its 20th issue. (“A nice, round number.”) And like a sort of editorial compost, the time and resources that were created by ending Broccoli have enabled Anja to either launch or develop even more projects.
And she’s not just creating her own print products – she’s also helping others to navigate the pitfalls of publishing and distributing magazines. Meanwhile she’s also experimenting with digital media, finding ways of connecting with audiences via Substack and TikTok and introducing them to her print publications.
That enthusiasm for trying new things was an inspiration for me in deciding to add video to the Stack podcast, so she’s the ideal guest for our first video episode. I held out against video podcasts for a long time, partly because I like the simplicity of the old RSS model, which makes it easy for listeners to follow the shows they want to hear. But I’ve also come to recognise that adding video makes it much easier to promote a podcast via social media, so I’m hoping that this new version is going to help our conversations with independent magazine makers reach many more listeners.
I’m including the full video below, and of course you can still follow us via good old RSS by searching for ‘Stack Magazines’ wherever you get your podcasts.
