That Time I Started (and Then Closed Down) a Magazine
It remains the coolest thing I've ever done, professionally
In 2014 I was pregnant for the first time and I hated it. I was so excited to be pregnant, to know that at the end of the time would be a baby to love, but the actual physicality of being pregnant was miserable to me. “Morning sickness” lasted all day long, all nine months. I had to regularly go to the hospital for stress tests. I went into preterm labor and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital in Pittsburgh to stop it. The only thing that made me smile is the kicks inside my body, a subtle secret I shared with the baby overtaking me.
I didn’t feel like I could share with anyone what I was feeling because each time I even broached the subject I was met with “well, at least you’re pregnant.” As if my gratitude wasn’t apparent enough and I should just keep my mouth shut. So I did - at least orally. But the thing is, I’ve always been a writer. It’s how I process what I’m feeling. I started writing about the feelings I was truly having on my personal blog. At the time it was a fashion blog I started back in 2011 (I have a bachelor’s degree in fashion.) But I needed somewhere for these feelings to go and so I put them there, I hit publish, expecting just a handful of people to read them.
And that’s what set the next decade of my life in motion. The simple act of opening up to what I was truly feeling in a world that didn’t want to hear it, adjusted the course of my life.
I was suddenly hearing from people I had no idea were reading my words. They were telling me THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for putting out into the world the things they felt but also didn’t think they could say out loud without backlash. It got my wheels spinning - what else did women feel like they couldn’t say out loud?
The idea continued to spin in my head throughout the first year of my baby’s life. Why is there so much that we have to keep hidden? Why can’t we be honest about what we’re going through? And all through that time, I continued to write honestly about what motherhood felt like to me - the really good parts, and the really bad parts. My experiences, there on the page, felt like a release to me. And I wanted to give that to other women.
I had always dreamed of working at a magazine, but suddenly I thought - what if I created my own simple digital magazine? I had no idea how to do it, but I started researching in the downtime at my full time job in marketing at an architecture firm. I wanted a magazine that was filled with stories, honest stories of what women were going through - sometimes having never talked about it before. I’d never designed a magazine before but through my full time job I was designing proposals for building projects and I figured I could take those skills to use on this new project. And, I had gotten close to other bloggers over the years of my being online so I knew I could ask them if they’d want to contribute to the first issue and we could see what would happen from there.
And that’s what I did. Beginning in April 2015 I gathered stories, designed the issue, and figured out how to put it out into the world. And then suddenly, on June 1, 2015 the issue was live (and free!). I had named it Holl & Lane (a name I eventually came to despise), in honor of the cross streets of my home. I didn’t think too long and hard about any of it, convinced this would be a fun side project I’d take on here and there. Sharing it with my blog readers and on my personal social media channels though showed me just how desperate women were for this type of content and I quickly realized I couldn’t do this alone. I put a call out on my blog’s social media channels that I needed someone to help me with social media and I had a couple of women step up immediately, one of whom has stayed with me, branching off into various projects, since then. (Ahem, .)
Very quickly the magazine took over my life. We were getting inundated with women wanting to share their stories. We quickly put a price tag on it so that the magazine could sustain itself (while never actually getting paid ourselves for the insane amount of hours we dedicated to it.) We were being asked to make it in print, which came with its own set of problems that we eventually figured out.
To be honest, those early, scrappy days of the magazine feel much like a blur. I was still working full time, I was trying to be a mother to a one year old, and I was trying to figure out how to keep this new thing that I loved so much going. But I do know I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it without the few volunteers who came alongside me. We were able to commiserate and celebrate together and it kept me pushing forward, no matter how many setbacks (and there were a lot!) we encountered.
Eventually we did move to both a print version and a subscription model. Suddenly every other month I was shipping out hundreds of print issues and another few hundred digitally. I started seeing orders coming in from places like New Zealand - places I never dreamed I’d reach. The month of a new release I had to call in friends to help me carry in boxes and boxes of issues and package each new order. At the beginning I was handwriting a thank you note to every print order and individually wrapping each order. And though my wrist was killing me, those notes of gratitude to each person who ordered was one of my favorite things to do because it forced me to look at the fruits of my labor - something I’d never given myself the time to do.
Human Feelings is an entirely free publication. But if you’re able to upgrade your subscription for just $5/month to support my work here, I’d be forever grateful.
Those years of running Holl & Lane, of telling the stories of literally thousands of women both through the pages of the magazine and on the online blog we had to start to keep up with the amount of stories we were receiving, were truly the most creatively fulfilled I’d ever felt. I couldn’t believe that I was getting to share these stories of miscarriage, infertility, mental health struggles, body image traps, divorce, racial issues, sexual assault, and more. Through those pages I was able to give women the space they’d been looking for - a safe space with no judgment.
The magazine spun off into a community on Facebook, a place where we could safely share our truths in real time. It was there that a member came when she had just found out her husband was cheating on her. It was there that a member came when she was fighting with her mother and didn’t know how to handle the boundaries. It was there that we celebrated the milestones and supported the hardships. It was a community of women across ages, races, religions, and geographic locations.
Eventually the costs of running the magazine - financially, mentally, and emotionally took its toll on me. Day in and day out I was sharing really difficult stories from women I had gotten to know whose pain I then put onto my own shoulders to help them carry it. I didn’t know any way to separate myself from it and I could feel it all starting to push me down. Plus, the financial costs were too great. Printing and shipping a magazine, especially one exceptionally high quality with thick, luscious pages, is not conducive to a small business. Each dollar that came in went right back out the door in those costs. Sometimes we’d make a very small profit, other times we’d lose money, even with advertisers helping to cover some costs. I started to feel that none of it was sustainable.
By this time we had produced 20 issues and I knew that was my cue to step back for a minute and think about how to move forward - if I could move forward. I decided to give it one last shot - we changed the name to The Kindred Voice, and we moved to digital issues only. But things were changing in the online world at that point too. There started to be other spaces popping up for these vulnerable conversations - podcasts, blogs, other magazines. I knew we had been on the forefront of this type of movement, and suddenly I felt like we were getting lost in the mix. The specialness of what we were doing was fading, and I was fading along with it.
We produced four issues under The Kindred Voice, all digitally, before I decided I couldn’t do it anymore. We continued to share stories under the name on our blog, and our community continued, but I knew that it was time for the next thing - especially for me.
I had done what I set out to do - to share the stories of women we’re often told to keep hidden. And I was so freaking proud of what we accomplished. And now when I look back on it, I can’t even believe that so many trusted me with their biggest secrets. I don’t remember the exact day that I woke up and just knew it was time to close it all down. But I do know that I wavered for several months not wanting to disappoint anyone else. I knew how much this community I’d built meant to so many and I didn’t want them to suddenly feel alone.
Google tells me I sent out my “It’s Time to Say Goodbye” letter a year ago. But some days it feels like a lifetime ago, some days it feels like I was still pushing through the long hours just last month. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully grasp the effect that my magazine had on both my life and the lives of others. But I do know that I will forever be grateful for it, for what and who it brought into my life. It set me on the path of running my own business and taught me about graphic design (which I fell in love with), about writing and editing (which I still use today to help my clients), and about the human spirit most importantly.
Sometimes I wonder where I’d be now if I hadn’t had the urge to create this new thing and launch it into the world - would I be still working for someone else? Or would I have found my way to entrepreneurship regardless? Would I have the skills I have now that allow me to work with incredible clients? Would I be as fulfilled? I’ll never know and I’m glad for that because I think that this magazine shaped my life in exactly the way it was supposed to. And I’ll always be in shock that me, Sarah, the girl sitting in the corner of her bedroom working long into the night, was able to make a dream like this come true. It’s the thing I’m most proud of professionally and I will forever celebrate it - and the people it brought to my life.
Before we end, a few of my favorite spreads I designed over the years:
Grateful for Holl and Lane and to you and Mia. You were fans of my writing from the start. It's a beautiful chapter of your life. And I got to be a part of it. xoxoxo
🎶 Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind... 🎶 😁 Love this post, love your journey from then to now, love YOU.