Once a month we invite our member magazine publishers and enthusiasts to guest-edit our fortnightly email newsletter. The aim is to inspire others with magazine-related content, connect members and build our community so we can learn from each other.
This month our guest editor is Jackson Howarth, editor of It’s Freezing in LA!. You can follow Jackson on Instagram – remember to connect and say hello!
Tell us about yourself
My name is Jackson Howarth. I’m currently the editor of the climate and environmental magazine, It’s Freezing in LA!, which I’ve had the pleasure of working on for 6 years now. Beyond the mag I don’t stray too far from the climate realm, working as a writer with a focus on energy, water, and socially responsible science.
Members receive their first 5 Ikon Images illustration uses for £50 each
What’s on your mind?
I’m currently walking around the American Southwest, putting the finishing touches on our 11th Issue from a series of campsites and strange motel rooms. The issue is all about knowledge, and it’s got me thinking more deeply about whether drawing on different ways of knowing might help us better communicate about the climate – to help preserve the wild and wonderful landscapes and communities I’ve been walking though, and those further afield. Could drawing on different mediums, methods and tones help break through fatigue, and hold our attention to the ‘why’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ of climate action in healthier, more sustainable ways?
What’s the best article you’ve
read this month?
The article that’s stuck with me was this one by Phoebe Weston. Though slightly clumsily titled, it’s a lovely piece of green journalism, chronicling the efforts of ecologists who teach endangered bald ibis their lost migration routes, coaxing these birds hundreds of miles from the seats of their gliders. It’s well written, hopeful – yet not unrealistically so, and wonderfully unique. I loved that it conjured a rare moment of childlike wonder; stirring up all sorts of fresh questions in its wake: how did they find out the birds’ original migration routes if they were already extinct in Europe? Do birds have some genetic migratory memory? Could you teach the birds a different route if the climate changes drastically – what lengths will we go to save our non-human relatives?
Show us an incredible magazine cover
It’s a bit of an oldie, but I’ve recently been looking back at the cover of this 2019 relaunch issue of Science for the People Magazine: ‘The return of Radical Science’. SftP is the original progressive, justice-minded science magazine, founded in 1969, and it dissolves the imagined boundary between science and politics in a way that’s inspired us. I love how the form of Matteo Farinella’s illustration reflects the subject matter. The verdant scene contains so much satisfying complexity, reminiscent of an organic Rube Goldberg machine with all its parts, yet it still manages to communicate a clear message – rebirth and growth.
What’s your top tip for publishers?
We’re often asked about sustainable magazine making; about recycled paper and vegetable-based inks and low carbon mills and all those sorts of things. Still, I think people often forget that one of the most important ingredients for sustaining a sustainable magazine (or any magazine for that matter) involves making sure that the process is roundly fun. It can be stressful making a magazine, especially when your topic is fraught, but I continue to have the time of my life working with the team, mixing mediums and solving communicative conundrums. If you can sustain that, then you’re most of the way there.
Questions for the community
What subject or issue would you like the International Magazine Centre Members Group to discuss and untangle over on LinkedIn?
My question is: What’s the most interesting idea you’ve had or heard for making a magazine more sustainable?
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