Cahoots Magazine
Guest Contribution by Aubin van Berckel
A few weeks ago, I found a magazine called cahoots in my mail-box. Intrigued by the cover photo, a detail from a piece of fabric art, I turned to the table of contents and discovered an eclectic series of articles grouped under headings such as: Bits, Columns, and Inspired. I flipped through the glossy, richly illustrated pages, and scanned among other articles: World Snapshot — covering stories from several continents; an essay, A Snail's Progress with a photo by Euan Macdonald; a text and photo essay on jazz women; an article, Service With A Smile, asking the question, "Is it bad for your health to believe the customer is always right?" a humorous "advice" column, Rent-a-Friend; an article, "Learning to Help Myself"; a page of poetry, featuring four different poets; Escapes, an arts and entertainment section; and at the end, two pages providing information about all of the contributors, including a featured artist, who was responsible for many of the paintings appearing throughout the magazine and was the author of an essay entitled, An Artist's Way. Turning back to the front cover, I noticed that the mission statement of the magazine was printed right under its name: cahoots — conspire to inspire. Thinking it was a good motto, I opted to "borrow" the magazine before delivering it to its rightful owner.
Back home, I visited their website, www.cahootsmagazine.com, and realized I wanted to learn the story behind the feisty and articulate publication I had lucked into. A few days later, I was chatting by telephone with the managing editor, Carla Atherton. At her end, the sounds of children playing provided a backdrop to our conversation. When her three-year old daughter interrupted us to ask her mother a question, I could have been with them in their Saskatoon kitchen.
Carla's friendly informality is reflected everywhere in cahoots. The articles are passionate and funny, serious and respectful, but never preachy or prim. Peppered with facts and humour and holding kernels of both commonsense and wonderful insight, they read like the conversations we might have with good friends. Many are short enough to read during coffee break, and since most include something screaming to be shared, taking cahoots to the lunchroom is not a bad idea.
It was, in fact, over coffee that cahoots was conceived. A group of women, all of them writers, got caught up in an informal brainstorming session about the sort of magazine they wished existed for women. Spurred by the euphoria that collaborative creativity can inspire, they decided to start one, themselves. It took two years of hard work, but they managed to make the difficult leap from brilliant idea to concrete reality, an impressive accomplishment, since most brilliant ideas never make it beyond the scintillating moment of conceptualization.
cahoots makes a concerted effort to support the arts. As well as providing a great venue for artists within the pages of the magazine, they are planning a series of evenings with "some of Canada's most amazing women." They have scheduled the first party to coincide with the launch of the December anniversary issue of the magazine, inviting readers in and around Saskatoon to a wine and dessert reception "in cahoots with" poet, Lorna Crozier, and writer, Sharon Butala, and they hope to sponsor similar evenings in cities across Canada.
Carla and her staff are true renaissance women of the twenty-first century — multi-talented multi-taskers. Because the contributing writers and some of her staff are scattered across the country, Carla relies on the internet as much as on face-to-face meetings. The website is an ambitious one, with plans for a national calendar of artistic events (coming in October), a chat-room, a shop (the cahoots store) where artists and crafters can sell their products, and the newest development, cahoots on-line. They provide an easy submission form for writers to send proposals and articles via the internet. Currently, they have posted a call to artists to submit their portfolios for consideration for the Featured Artist section which they include in every issue. I urge you to visit them at www.cahootsmagazine.com and support their efforts to support Canadian artists.
To read the Fall issue of cahoots, please go toJust enter your cahoots keyword "OPUS"
|
Opus Customer Service: