Confessions of a Magazine Junkie (Pt 1)

• August
• 8

9:31 am Calling, Chit-chat, Magazines, Reading, Writing

I’ve always loved reading, but especially magazines. I cut my teeth on New Idea, Woman’s Day and the Australian Women’s Weekly (which really WAS a weekly back then!). I was the eldest of four children being raised by a divorced mother, yet no matter how broke we were, Mum always got her magazines! With three daughters, it was always a fight to see who got to read it first! Perhaps there are some genetic roots to my magazine addiction …

I submitted my first ever story to a magazine when I was 12. In hindsight, I did EVERYTHING wrong – wrote it in bright green felt-tipped pen, AND sent it to the Australian Women’s Weekly no less! Not surprisingly, they declined to print it, but I did get a lovely personal letter from Ita Buttrose, the editor at the time, encouraging me to continue with my writing.

As a 12 year old I also bought my very own first magazine – a copy of Dolly. I was very nervous as I took it up to the counter of the newsagency to buy it – could they tell I wasn’t “officially” a teenager yet?! Maybe I wouldn’t be allowed to buy it or read it!

That was only the start of my addiction. Soon, most of my pocket money was going on teen magazines from the UK and USA (Dolly was it for Oz at the time) – Seventeen, Teen, Look Now, Patches … and many others whose names escape me now!

Whatever pocket money was left over, I spent on stamps and pretty stationery sets as I had many penpals. This all started when I was 10. My parents signed me up for a penpal club and before long I had dozens from all over the world. I remember walking home from school and the excitement of lifting the lid on our mailbox, and more often than not there was a letter just for me. Sometimes there was even a stack, bundled together with a rubber band!

When I was in Year 9, my best friend (another avid pen-paller) and I decided to produce our own magazine. We called it Cheeky after our fave perfume. Cheeky was three photocopied pages, and we probably broke every copyright law in the book as we sourced a lot of our material from other magazines! Cheeky was eagerly embraced by our friends at school, as well as our penpals overseas. Cathy and I would take turns to edit and produce Cheeky each month. We kept it going for 9 months – all through Year 9 – which is a long time when you’re only 13!

So in actual fact, Footprints is the SECOND magazine that I have created and edited!