Letter From the Former Publisher

Tweet

Magazine Issue

Jan-Mar 2011

• View contents >
• Buy issue >

by Malcolm Margolin — published January 01, 2011

Dear David,

Some 14 years have slipped by since you first approached me with the idea that we create a natural history magazine for the Bay Area. I remember warning you early on that magazines require a constant thinking ahead. It's not enough to plan the next issue; while doing so, you've got to be envisioning the issue after that and even the one still farther down the line and probably the one beyond that. You endlessly climb a mountain that grows as fast as you can climb it; you reach what you think is a summit only to see other summits ahead. To be a publisher is to live in a future that is forever unfolding.

A 10th anniversary, however, provides a temporary stopping place, a rare moment when you can take your eyes off the future for a few minutes and survey the past. Do you realize fully what you've accomplished? Are you aware of how few people have taken the wisp of an idea and spun out of it something of such scale and significance?

I hope in the midst of all the pressures of publishing you pause to feel the pride and satisfaction that you deserve for the dozens of writers and photographers whose careers you have advanced and whose skills you have developed; for the knowledge you have spread, the causes you've supported, the fragile beauty you've embraced, the community you've built. You've been not just steadfast but heroic. I was present at the birth, but you raised the child. Please accept my wholehearted congratulations and deepest admiration for the great gift you've given us all.

Enjoy thoroughly the novelty of feeling good, but not for too long. The clock is ticking, the pages of the calendar are turning, and you need to turn again to the future. You need to be planning the next issue, envisioning the issue after that, and even the one farther down the line and probably the one beyond that too. Get back to work, old friend. After all, you're a publisher.

Kindest regards,

Malcolm Margolin, cofounder

Dear Malcolm,

Thanks for your kind and eloquent words of congratulations. To say that Bay Nature wouldn't and couldn't have happened without you is both obvious and insufficient. I just looked back at my notes from our first meeting in January 1997. "Malcolm thinks there is enormous potential for such a magazine . . . Has to have emphasis on beauty, history, natural phenomena . . . Needs to appeal to the senses . . . Goal is to create resource that can stitch together community of people studying, protecting Bay Area environment." These concepts have guided us from the beginning, and you were the guide who helped us scale those daunting summits early on. Thanks for your presence at the birth and beyond.

Gratefully,

David Loeb, publisher