Stack Magazines Stack Magazines

Ellie Jackson is the editor-in-chief and creative director of The Movement Movement, the women’s sports magazine that is committed to broadening our understanding of what sports coverage should look like. Issue one came out a few weeks ago, but that was preceded by issue zero, which came out in 2022, and in this episode she speaks about the delay between the two issues, and the struggle to stay on track when life gets in the way.

Steph Chung is managing partner at Racquet, the New York-based magazine that takes a fresh, anti-elitist look at the world of tennis. There have been some big changes since the last issue, with editor David Shaftel and art director Larry Buchanan both leaving the magazine, and a more commercial emphasis across the pages, with a big Gucci photo shoot on the cover and inside, and a partnership with Seoul-based cultural creators Ssoldot. It’s all part of a plan to take advantage of what Steph calls, “the convening power of the magazine”, and in this conversation she outlines their plan for making it more commercially successful, while expanding further into events, merchandise, and other activities based around tennis.

Zuzana Kvetková is executive editor of Backstage Talks, the magazine that grew out of Bratislava’s By Design Conference. Their new issue will be landing in shops very soon, and as she explains in this podcast, it marks something of a watershed. Because after 10 years they’ve decided that it’s time to stop running the conference, which in turn prompts lots of questions about what the magazine should be.

Yuto Miyamoto is editor of Troublemakers, a new Tokyo-based interview magazine that fills its pages with ordinary people living variously extraordinary lives. It’s a very personal magazine – he makes it with his wife, Manami Inoue, who is the art director, and interviewees are photographed at home, with lots of space dedicated to exploring their thoughts and beliefs. They're stretching the dictionary definition of 'troublemakers', and having some fun along the way.

Tom Rowley runs the Backstory bookshop in Balham in South London. He was previously a journalist for The Telegraph and The Economist, which he describes as his dream job, but when the pandemic knocked everything sideways he decided it was time to reassess and follow his other dream of running a bookshop. As he puts it, though, he felt the pull of ink in his veins, and started publishing Backstory magazine, which allows him to dig into the stories behind the stories in the books that he loves, reflecting on the experience of reading and writing.

Lucy Roeber is editor and publisher of the Erotic Review, a magazine that became particularly well known as a bimonthly title in the late 90s and early 2000s. It had since switched to publishing online and it was going to close altogether, and in this episode she tells how she set out to bring it back as a fully-fledged print magazine. In her hands it has become a lovely, thick literary magazine, aimed at an international readership and dedicated to reaching, “outside the embarrassed parameter” to explore the rich subject of desire.