With December half way through, now is probably one of the most stressful times of year across North America. This is the time where everything you forgot to do before Christmas suddenly looms. Having to finish everything before the holidays arrive can make these last weeks pass like a whirlwind and leaves many people feeling dizzy and stressed.
It’s no less busy for The Voice Magazine as well. Next issue will be our last one of the year, with December 27th being our annual Christmas hiatus, and the January 3rd issue will feature the Best of the Voice for 2013. This means that we have to go through all the articles of last year and choose the stand-outs then get in touch with the writers to make sure that they’re willing to sell us reprint rights. But I’m just one person, and what I consider to be the best articles you might not agree with. So if you remember any articles over the course of the year that you feel deserve to be included in our Best of The Voice edition, let me know at karl@voicemagazine.org.
Also, AUSU is planning for its own end of the year newsletter, which means The Voice Magazine advertisements need to be ready in time. More people knowing about The Voice Magazine gives us more opportunities to find new writers and bring you new perspectives.
Our reader survey is wrapping up over this weekend and the 8″ Samsung Galaxy Tablet will be awarded and sent out?with luck arriving before Christmas?which means that if you haven’t filled out the survey yet, you still have a chance. You can find the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VoiceReader until it closes. After that, work will start in earnest on the much larger student survey that I’ll be using to try to gauge where the Voice Magazine needs to go in future to achieve the goal of it becoming the best student magazine in the world.
In the meantime, however, some behind the scenes work has already started. If you’re on the Voice Magazine website, you can see some small signs of it with the new AUSU logo and catch phrases that reflect The Voice Magazine’s distinct style of funding and publishing more accurately.
And, of course, all of this is going on while The Voice Magazine continues to publish articles like the second part of our feature on Iqaluit, as experienced by AU student, Barbara Lehtiniemi, or like S.D. Livingston’s look at smart phone addiction, where she makes a great point about how when we put everything we’d do anyway under one device, people think of it as being addicted rather than productive. Also in this issue you’ll find the last of our French series on the poet Kamal Benkirane from Wanda Waterman, the conclusion of Christina M. Frey’s quotation guide, Hazel Anaka’s take on tourism, plus a number of other diversions to keep you busy.
Hope you enjoy! ?Karl
