It might have been called an abuse of the autograph. Where the escalators
lead up to and then exit the second floor of Barnes & Noble, the area was full
on Wednesday, June 11. Smartly dressed baby boomers from in and around Austin
drank soft drinks, nibbled cookies, and viewed the unveiling of the premier issue
of a new quarterly magazine, @Austin. It was said to be another first — a
magazine signing — but it could have been any convention. This one involved
autographs, exchanged like business cards, as the masthead of issues of @Austin became the
mating ground for all with a pen. The magazine itself, like the crowd that
appeared, is polished and mature, spoken with the voices of many of have lived and
enjoyed Austin for some time.
As editor-in-chief Alice Wightman explains in the first issue, “We
wanted to read about our contemporaries and what they were doing, the places worth
knowing about and the best things to see and do when there is little time to
spare.” It was about three years ago that Wightman starting working on the idea of
@Austin. After spending many years writing for others (including freelancing for
The Austin Chronicle), Wightman felt that it was the right time for a city magazine
in the tradition of Third Coast (which folded in the mid-Eighties), and that
if she did not do it, somebody else would. One factor influencing her decision to
publish was a recent census that put the population of Austin at over one million
residents.
Along with a publishing consultant, Wightman developed a business plan,
and then began talking to friends. Wightman had met many of the writers for
@Austin through a group that formed out of the Austin Writer’s League. That group
included writers who were not necessary dealing with trying to get published, but what
to do and how to handle things after they began publishing.
The premier issue of @Austin features author/singer-songwriter
Kinky Friedman on the cover, interviewed by Wightman herself. Favorite local writers such as
Tom Doyal (with a short fiction piece, entitled “Mambo Panties”) and
Sarah Bird (with a photo-essay of the off-beat rodeo circuit) find another home.
Austin Bay covers foreign affairs in the stateside section, and Erin Hynes, another
established writer, settles into her own gardening column.
But then there are other, less established writers like poet Scott
Wiggerman, who finds a way to accurately compare asparagus and a drag queen, each
changing with the season, in the poem “Asparagus.” That poem is found in
the book section where local celebrities are asked their favorite book — author Mary
Willis cites Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 while mayor Kirk Watson ranks The
Good City and the Good Life by Daniel Kemmis as his reading choice for 1996. A list
of upcoming events, similar to the one in Texas Monthly, includes events
of interest over the next quarter.
A welcome addition, @Austin can be found in bookstores and
newsstands around the city.
— Jeremy Reed
This article appears in June 27 • 1997 and June 27 • 1997 (Cover).