On September 29th, the International Magazine Centre held its inaugural conference, Magazine Street, at Assembly Roxy in Edinburgh. The conference’s primary aim was to connect people working in magazine publishing and give them ideas on how to develop or improve their business through talks, workshops, and presentations. Many aspects of magazine publishing were addressed and discussed, but there was a common topic linking nearly all talks together: the importance of community.

Community meant different things to different speakers. Laura Bartlett, founding editor of luxury travel magazine House of Coco, told the audience about her journey in magazine publishing, from having to declare bankruptcy in her early twenties to launching her own print magazine. During her talk, Bartlett highlighted how crucial it is to have a team you can trust to deliver what they promise; she thinks of House of Coco as a “we”, rather than an “I” – even though she is the founder and CEO. Having a team she can trust is essential to the success of the magazine, and even though they rarely get to see each other, Bartlett makes sure every member feels part of the House of Coco family.

For Mark Alker, founder of Singletrack (a mountain biking magazine), community means survival. Readers of Singletrack have been interacting with each other and with Alker himself on the magazine’s online forum for twenty years. Alker’s efforts to create and curate a community saved his magazine more than once. When the website was hacked in December 2008, the community fought back on behalf of the magazine and helped them rebuild; when the cost of living crisis hit the United Kingdom, readers offered to pay more for their Singletrack copies instead of cancelling their subscriptions. Without its readers, the magazine would simply not exist as it does today.

Community is at the heart of Greater Govanhill. Rhiannon Davies founded this community magazine to give people living in Govanhill a chance to tell their stories, and give the rest of the world a different view on local issues – a view focused on finding solutions rather than problems. Davies had to gain the trust of the magazine’s future contributors and readers by showing up and keeping at it; once they realised her intentions were genuine, Govanhill residents happily became involved in the project. The magazine helps reinforce their sense of community, uplifts their voices, and allows them to share their experiences.

Though speakers offered different perspectives on community, it was clear everyone valued it as a central part of their work. Magazine Street itself was, after all, an event that promoted and created a sense of community within the magazine publishing industry. Being immersed in such a collaborative, supportive environment made us all feel the importance of community. Speakers encouraged their audience to pave their own path within publishing, and by the end of the conference it was clear to everyone present that finding your voice is a crucial step towards it. The following step, then, is to find other voices to sing with you.

Image credit: photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash