A Compilation of her
Letters from the Editor
1998 through 2000

Dear Friends,

I’d first like to acknowledge the great responses we’ve gotten from our Spring 2000 edition! I know: Cheryl Haworth, Olympic hopeful in weight lifting (now seventeen years old), is amazing! This is a sport I’ve never watched before, but you can be sure I’ll be glued to the TV and cheering her on at this fall’s Olympics. Go, Cheryl!

I’m getting letters, e-mails, artwork, and essays from kids of all ages. I love hearing from kids: it makes my passion for and work in size acceptance more complete knowing we’re helping along another generation. Remember to share the information from our Kids Project that we’ve printed in past issues with kids you know, with teachers and educators, and with others who work with kids. Most of this information and more is up at our web site, so feel free to refer people to the support that is available (www.radiancemagazine.com). We will continue to put the voices and stories of kids and teens into Radiance a few times a year as our circle of support grows.

Many of you enjoyed our Spring articles about intimacy and finding love, saying how helpful and timely they were to you. I’m so glad to hear that! Considering the issue of intimacy is important to most of us, whatever path we are on: be it single and content, single and looking, in a relationship and happy, or in a relationship and not too thrilled. We will continue to pursue love in future issues of the magazine. Please write up your stories, and send them to us for consideration. And tell us what topics you would like to see in Radiance. It’s powerful for all of us to share and to read one another’s stories.

This Summer issue is our Sixth Annual Swimsuit Edition: Swimsuits 2000! Thanks to those of you who sent in your photos. They are so much fun! They truly show the variety and wonder of who we are! This is an annual feature, folks, so take photos this summer and send them (as many as you’d like us to consider) our way. Our next deadline is around May 1, 2001, so take along your camera as you hit the pools, lakes, and oceans this year. You could be a centerfold!

Thanks, too, to the readers who sent in poetry and personal essays on their beach, swimsuit, and summer experiences. These always add to our Summer issue and help address the myriad feelings most of us have about donning swimsuits and taking the plunge.

I especially want to draw your attention to this issue’s interview of actress Aviva Jane Carlin by Elaine Hesse. Carlin wrote and stars in the play Jodie’s Body. I was so moved by her words, her performance, her courage, and her artistry when I saw Carlin onstage that I had to bring Radiance readers as close to this experience as I could. We’ve printed excerpts from her show along with the interview, in hopes that you will feel a part of Carlin’s audience.

Our new “Food for Thought” column by longtime writer and contributing food editor Marina Wolf promises to give us some new ideas to chew on. In this issue, she interviews T.V.’s medical journalist Dr. Dean Edell, a must-read.

We are very proud to tell you about the successful efforts of our San Francisco Bay Area community for fat rights. Activists here introduced an amendment to the existing law banning discrimination on the basis of race, religion, age, gender, and so on, to include weight and height. After testimony and hearings and a lot of behind-the-scenes work, this important legislation was signed by Mayor Willie Brown on May 26, 2000. The legislation amends existing police and administrative codes to ban discrimination based on height and weight–in housing, public accommodations, and employment. In “Making News,” Attorney Carole Cullum talks about the San Francisco amendment and tells you how to work for similar change in your own community. So read on and make some news of your own! Be sure to let us know how it goes, so that we can report about progress in your part of the world.

You may have noticed that our subscription rates went up (as of March 2000). This is our first increase since 1990, and it was a necessary move for us. The costs of producing (and mailing) the magazine have been going up steadily, and as an independent magazine with no major (or minor) backers, Radiance is always in need of reader support. You can help in a number of ways: sharing information about us with friends, relatives, local businesses, doctors, therapists, health centers, libraries, and so on; sending financial contributions to help in the production of each issue and in our expansion efforts; or even writing to or for us.

You are a major part of this endeavor. I learn from you. I’m inspired by you. I breathe easier knowing that you’re out there, wherever you live and whatever your situation, joining in our size- acceptance efforts and working to bring more awareness and self-love to yourself and those around you. Share your gifts, whatever they are. Participate in your local size-acceptance activities, or create some if none yet exist. And remember that you can advertise your local activities in Radiance!

This September will mark our sixteenth anniversary! We plan to celebrate with a special issue later in November. It will be called the Winter issue and it will replace the Fall issue, which would have come out in October. Don’t worry, subscribers: you will receive the total number of issues you signed up for. There will be special holiday subscription offers (for you to renew and for holiday gifts you’d like to give) in the next issue, along with many new tales of adventure, courage, humor, and holiday sparkle!

Combining these two seasons (Fall and Winter) will also allow us to put Radiance on a new quarterly schedule that will bring you each issue earlier in the season. Advertisers want this and readers have said they’d like this. I want to thank all of my staff for their hard work throughout a year of changes in support staff and distribution. You have all helped get each issue out in beautiful form. Here’s a toast to us all: To sixteen-plus more radiant years together!

So friends, enjoy the swimsuit season. Find a friend and go to the beach. There is nothing like the feel of the air, sun, and water on that fabulous body of yours. With this, I welcome you to our Summer 2000 Swimsuit Edition.

Be well,

Alice Ansfield, Publisher & Swimmer !

Remember, this is only a taste of what's inside the printed version of the magazine!