Podcast: BME print panel discussion

On Tuesday night we packed the basement of The Book Club in London for our BME print event, and we’re releasing the audio as this week’s podcast episode. It was a fantastic evening, with a really funny and informative panel of magazine makers speaking about why they do the things they do, and I was struck by both the similarities and differences in their motivations.

Mariel NO is the assistant arts and culture editor of gal-dem, and spoke about the importance of providing a platform that enables women of colour to write about whatever they want, rather than “the struggle”, and other subjects they are generally asked to contribute to. Rhona Ezuma is editor of Thiiird, a new magazine of intersectional identity that launched earlier this month, and she echoed Mariel’s thoughts, saying that she started publishing because she was frustrated by the limitations she encountered.

For Campbell Addy, founder of Nii Journal, the route to making a magazine was much more personal; after growing up in a largely white area, he was struck by how little he knew of black cultures around the world, and the more he learned, the more he wanted to share. While for Jason Nicco-Annan, co-founder of Signatures, the appeal was in documenting the creative process and producing a magazine that seeks to explore and understand the creativity coming out of Africa and the African diaspora.

It was great fun and totally fascinating, and I hope the audio captures some of the energy and optimism that was there in the room. We were also joined by Park Communications, and I’m very pleased to say that they’re sponsoring this week’s episode. If you’re working on a new magazine project, or if you want to hear what their print expertise could do for you, drop them a line and make sure you tell them Stack sent you.

And if you like this episode, remember you can find lots more on our Soundcloud or iTunes pages – scroll back a few months and you’ll find more recordings from our Stack Live events, as well as lots of individual conversations with magazine makers. Follow us while you’re there, and we’ll deliver next week’s episode to you as soon as it’s ready on Friday afternoon.

Image courtesy of @misslaurahueto