SHE LOOKS FORWARD TO YOUR PROMPT REPLY

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Jody Quon’s desk is immaculate. There’s a lot there, but she knows exactly where everything is. It’s like an image out of Things Organized Neatly.

She rarely swears. Or loses her temper. In fact she’s one of the most temperate people in the office. Maybe the most. She’s often been referred to as a “rock.”

She remembers every shoot and how much it cost to produce. She knows who needs work and who she can ask for favors.

She’s got the magazine schedule memorized and expects you to as well. She’s probably got your schedule memorized, too.

She’s usually one of the first in the office and last to leave. In fact, on the day she was scheduled to give birth to her first child, she came to work and put in a full day. When her water broke at around 6pm, she called her husband to say, “It’s time.”

I don’t know if any of this is true. Except the baby thing. That is true. Kathy Ryan told me so.

I had a teacher in high school, Ms. Trice. She was tough. I didn’t much like her. She would often call me out for this or that. Forty years later, she’s the only one I remember, and I remember her very fondly. In my career, I’ve often thought that the best managing editors, production directors, and photography directors were just like Ms. Trice. These positions, more than any others, are what make magazines work. They’re hard on you because they expect you to be as professional as you can be. They make you better. (I see you, Claire, Jenn, Nate, Carol, and Sally.)

I suspect that a slew of Jody Quon’s coworkers and collaborators feel that same way about her. Actually, I don’t suspect. I know. I’ve heard it from all corners of the magazine business. I heard it again yesterday from her mentor and good friend, Kathy Ryan.

“She just has that work ethic,” Ryan says. “It’s just incredible when you think about it. The ambition of some of the things that they’ve done. And that has been happening right from the beginning. Ambition in the best sense. Thinking big. And she’s cool, always cool under pressure. We had a grand time working together. I still miss her.”

Jody Quon is one of those people who makes everybody around her better. That’s what I believe. And after this conversation, you probably will, too.

es.”

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

CHIC, BUT MAKE IT NICE

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It’s a cliché because it’s true: in the fashion world, you’ve got your show ponies and you’ve got your workhorses. We mean it as a compliment when we say that Samira Nasr truly earned her place at the helm of the 156-year-old institution, Harper’s Bazaar. Don’t get us wrong; Samira is seriously glamorous—she’s the kind of woman who phrases like “effortless chic” were invented to describe. But she did not cruise to her current perch on connections and camera-readiness alone. Rather, she worked her way up, attending J-school at NYU, then making her way through the fashion closets of Vogue, Mirabella, Vanity Fair, InStyle, and Elle—where we met in the trenches, and got to see firsthand how she mixes old-school, roll-up-your-sleeves work ethic and her own fresh vision.

When Samira got the big job at Bazaar in 2020, she became the title’s first-ever Black editor-in-chief. The Bazaar she has rebuilt is as close as a mainstream fashion magazine gets to a glossy art mag, but it is far from chilly. As she has long put it, “I just want to bring more people with me to the party.” Which, when you think about it, is a brilliant mantra for a rapidly shifting era in media and culture. How to keep a legacy fashion magazine going circa 2025? Drop the velvet rope.

The timing for this mantra could not have been better. After her first year in the role, Bazaar took home its first-ever National Magazine Award for General Excellence.

In our interview, Samira talked about remaking one of fashion’s most legendary magazines — plus, jeans, budgets, and even the odd parenting tip. We had fun, and we hope you

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

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“I was a publication designer for 20 years, making book covers at Knopf with Sonny Mehta, Carol Carson, and Chip Kidd. Later, in the early aughts, I made stories and books—and other things—at Martha Stewart Living. Then I took a brief adventure to graduate school—to learn a new trade. And finally I moved to The New York Times, where I helped create several of its legendary digital products, like NYT Cooking.

In December 2020, I bought a building on the Delaware River—and opened the Frenchtown Bookshop.

My name is Barbara deWilde … and this is The Next Page.”

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025