Publisher's VOICE - Jan. 2010
Happy New Year and welcome to the second decade of the 21-century. I am so proud and honored to welcome you to a new era in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media for the St. Louis region. The new Vital VOICE—Vital VOICE magazine—is tomorrow’s Omni-media publication and informative source that has been conceptually created just for you. The new magazine format is a modern reflection of today’s community and each month we will strive to showcase all that is great and amazing about our LGBT lifestyle and community.
With this debut, appropriately titled The ICON Issue, we wanted to re-launch by saluting some of St. Louis’ very own movers and shakers who have selflessly made a commitment to the betterment of our community. In addition to Icons, our senior writer, Colin Murphy has also written a wonderful column on the history of LGBT media in St. Louis showcasing how we began and were we are going.
We are further pleased to present St. Louis’ own hometown-boy, Andy Cohen who is rapidly becoming an LGBT ICON as well as a POP ICON on the national scene. This February, “Mr. Bravo” has been tapped to be the celebrity host for “RED 2010 on Broadway”. For those of you not in the know, “RED”, is the annual benefit for Doorways St. Louis. Vital VOICE is proud to be one of the media sponsors for the “Cast Party” which will take place February 6, 2010 at the downtown Hilton St. Louis from 11p.m. to 3a.m. For tickets, please log on to www.doorwayshousing.org or call 314-535-1919, ext. 3048. This is sure to be a night to remember!
Each month in our new LIVE+CREATE (a.k.a. Lifestyle) section, you will learn about some of the great places to see and be seen as well as information on those in our community who make the world a little more artistic. Who knows, you may even spot a photo of yourself in our Scene & Styling pages. That’s right—Vital VOICE has gone all paparazzi.
STAY TUNED
Over this next year, we at Vital VOICE plan on bringing you a cornucopia of new ways to keep the community informed and bring us closer together. This summer we are planning a complete redesign of our website and look forward to bringing you video reporting. Currently we are scheduling many LGBT events in celebration of YOU. We have also decided to partner with SAGE to create some special programs for the senior members of our community.
One of our goals is to be more involved with not just our community, but the non-profit community as well. To that end, each issue will be dedicated to a non-profit of the month and a portion of our event proceeds will be donated to that organization. We’ll also donate an editorial page to tell the non-profit’s story in addition to partnering with them in programs throughout that month. I am pleased to announce that this month’s non-profit is Food Outreach and we encourage you, our community, to support this fabulous organization this January.
As you can see we have many things planned for you in the months ahead. I have only laid out a small portion of the great new packages to come and we encourage you to get involved and send us your comments, suggestions and the ideas that reflect YOU. You can contact us at dsly@thevitalvoice.com. Again, Happy New Year and Welcome to Vital VOICE magazine!
Big LOVE,
Darin Slyman
Publisher,
Vital VOICE
