A Compilation of her
Letters from the Editor
1998 through 1999
From
Radiance Fall 1998
Hi Friends,
Wow! Your responses to our Summer swimsuit
edition have been fabulous, simply fabulous! Your calls, e-mails, and notes scrawled on renewal cards are a
pleasure to read. Thank you. I knew you’d enjoy all the
readers’ swimsuit photos, the powerful comebacks to rude remarks, the personal essays, and our interviews
with three big Broadway stars. I could hardly wait for you to get this issue. I was bursting with excitement as
my staff and I worked on it!
This Fall issue is an important issue for me. It
marks the start of our fourteenth year in print. (Not bad considering one out of one hundred magazines makes
it.) I’m amazed, I’m thrilled, I’m humbled, and I’m blessed to be a part of something that touches so many
people’s lives. We truly are in this together. Your lives—your voices, your visions, your struggles, and your
successes—help fuel this work. You inspire me. I am continually honored to read your words and share in your
lives. Thank you.
I also thank my talented, devoted, and passionate staff and
writers for all they’ve given to make our magazine as good as it is and to help our office run as smoothly as it
does. I am proud of what
Radiance has grown to become, with its diversity, its honesty, and its heart.
While I’m thanking people, I’d like to take a
moment to thank my friends for their generosity, trust, compassion, and humor, and for sharing the ins and outs
of our lives.
And to Willie, my cat of nine years, whose love,
comfort, companionship, and sweet self are pure joy. The gratitude list continues. Friends of
Radiance—people and groups who’ve made donations to us this past year—are listed inside each
Fall issue. Thanks to everyone who has helped us in this way. Please, keep your support coming when your
resources allow. Every
contribution helps.
Special acknowledgement and thanks go to a
longtime
Radiance reader, Radiance
Tour enthusiast, and all-around good person, Donna Johnston. In the past year she contributed a
large financial gift to
Radiance in an effort to, as she said, and I
quote, “support the creative people in my life” and “to help you [Alice] get a little relief from expenses so
you can focus on
Radiance’s expansion. . . .” Thank you, thank you,
thank you, Donna. Your generosity, spirit of sharing, and goodwill helped create
bigger, more colorful, and more widely distributed Summer
and Fall issues. I hope your giving made you feel wonderful. If anyone else out there wants to feel
wonderful, please . . . give me a call! We have a lot more growing to do!
This issue is also important to me because of
the articles for our Kids Project, like the interview with therapist
Jane Hirschmann and the essay from Michael Loewy, Ph.D., professor of counseling, on supporting fat children in
the schools. Please, share these articles with your kids’ school personnel—the principal, resource staff, guidance
counselors, teachers (especially P.E. teachers!). Share them with other parents as you see fit. Share the
Radiance Kids Project with your friends who work with kids. The word has got to get out. Steps
have to be taken to ensure that
all kids—whatever their size, shape, or situation in life—feel safe, loved, supported, and valued for who
they are. If you have ideas for our ongoing Kids Project, please call, write, , or come visit and talk with me! Your input, ideas, and resources are needed. Let’s act now. There’s no time
like the present.
In this anniversary issue, we will thrill you
with Gloria Cahill’s interviews of Camryn Manheim and Michael Badalucco of ABCs
The Practice. I am so impressed with both these stars of substance! And check out Images. Quite a nice variety of fashion, don’t you think? You can expect more colorful
fashion pages in upcoming issues. I especially want to thank those manufacturers and retailers who cater to the
supersize among us (one third of the large-size market, did you know?).
Readers, let these companies and others you call from our pages know that you found them through
Radiance. Happy shopping!
Coming up in Winter, B. Shanewood (author of the powerful story
“Red Line” in our Spring 1998 issue) interviews size-acceptance activist Lynn McAfee. Formerly of the Fat
Underground, McAfee is now active on the Council on Size & Weight Discrimination with
Radiance columnist William J. Fabrey and others. We’ll hear her tales of activism within the medical
and obesity research communities. She also shares her personal health experiences as a supersize woman.
Another of our fine writers, Marina Wolf,
interviews national food writer Jane Stern. Along with her husband,
Michael, Jane Stern has written more than two dozen books and countless articles, most of them about the
foodways, highways, and weird ways of America. Wolf also reviews favorite cookbooks just in time for the
“cooking therapy” we sometimes need on those cold winter days. Author Lynne Murray (author of Larger Than Death, a mystery reviewed in Radiance
Summer 1998) investigates sleuths of size as they’ve
been represented in mystery novels, and gives us a list of good reads. So watch for us the end of December.
Before I close, I want to encourage you to
continue to find ways to heal, nourish, and love yourselves on all levels—body, mind, and spirit. Keep looking
inside yourselves to see what dreams are asking to be pursued, which relationships are calling to be developed,
and what parts of yourselves need to be expressed. Trust what comes. Step out. I’ve found that my times
strolling the pathways by the Bay after work, give me the space I need to reflect and allow what’s inside to
surface. Nature is such a great teacher. Plus, it feels good move my
body, coaxing out the stiffness or pain caused by a less active day. Being out in nature gives me the
opportunity to let go of the feelings and activities of the day and open up to the insights I need for all areas
of my life.
May you find what you need this season to
stretch your view of yourself. It’s important to keep body size issues in perspective. Don’t let them overshadow
the other important and precious aspects that come together to make you who you are. All parts of you deserve
attention and appreciation. Thank you for the gifts you share with me and with others in your life.
With this I welcome you to our
Fall 1998, fourteenth anniversary edition.
Take care,
Alice Ansfield
Founder, Editor, Publisher ©
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