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Arts & Entertainment

Art Throb Launches Arts and Culture Magazine

Street Guide "for locals and those who want to live like locals."

Art Throb, the popular community-driven website for local art and culture, is launching a new monthly magazine called Street Guide to Your Local Life.

Street Guide will cover all forms of expression, including music, performance, visual, language, food, and more.

The official launch will take place April 2 at the annual Spring Fling at Old Town Hall.  A soft launch is scheduled for March 31 at Salem Theatre Company after the evening’s performance of .

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“Like our website, this magazine will show the role of local art in our everyday lives. It will reflect the urban nature and grit of downtown Salem and the art that is being made here," said Art Throb founder and Street Guide Editor-in-Chief Dinah Cardin.

The magazine will cover Salem  and eventually include art and cultural happenings in other North Shore towns, all the while “looking at these other areas through the lens of Salem” said Cardin.

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Taking an in-depth look at the arts scene, the magazine is, “a cultural commentary, and a piece of artwork itself” said Street Guide's Managing Editor and Art Director Lilly McCrea.

“There is a big difference seeing art online and seeing it in a high quality print. Print does the art justice. Art is the focal point of this magazine.”

Street Guide's stories will be shorter, but highly informative.

“Sharing room with the larger graphics is good – it makes us keep the stories crisp," said McCrea.  

When asked about the timing of a new print magazine, McCrea said “Salem is on a cusp, a renaissance. We believe the way to go forward is to go backward, picking up traditional media, such as the print magazine. We not only want Salem residents to be where they live, we want them to live where they live. This guide will be a mirror to Salem, amplifying it…It is for locals and for people who want to live like locals”.  

One particular audience Cardin and McCrea hope to engage is the commuter.  In every issue, a map of ‘cultural districts’ all over Salem will help readers hook in to what is happening, and plan excursions accordingly.

Street Guide  not only follows a local theme — it is also being produced locally by Deschamps Printing, whose Salem history dates back to 1916.  

Creative Beginnings

Choosing to start a magazine is a giant feat, made more astounding by the length of time it took to come to life — a mere 3 months.

"People came out of the woodwork to help and wanted to do whatever they could. It’s amazing how people wanted to be a part of it," Cardin said.

Street Guide's editorial staff includes local writers Rochelle Bourgault, 
Brian Lepire, Alex Miller, and Sarah Wolfe.

Last fall, after Art Throb published the book Art Is Where You Find It, the idea of working with something tactile began to make a lot of sense to Dinah and Lilly, both of whom had worked in print before.  This past January, a mentor suggested a move in the print direction. Plans for a magazine immediately began.

Cardin’s earlier experience launching Art Throb in June of 2009 was very similar.

“It also started with a mentor giving me a spark” she says. “I began with the premise of creating something where I could write about what I love – art and culture – and could put writers to work.”

And, like Street Guide, the Art Throb Web site was created in a very short, but intense period of time – just 40 days. 

Art Throb is a publication of Cardin’s Fireheart Communications, also based in Salem. Prior to starting the PR firm, Cardin worked as a journalist for several newspapers, including as an Arts writer for North Shore Sunday. She was the first staff writer with the Salem Gazette. She said the launch of that paper was a vital experience that helped her with Street Guide's launch.

In addition to journalism, Cardin teaches writing at and Endicott College, as well as an afternoon program at the .

Business partner and friend Lilly McCrea was also a writing teacher and ran a literary magazine for the Cambridge School of Weston. She is founder of Salem’s Front Street Writing Studio. Street Guide  has given McCrea the opportunity to focus on her love of photography and design.

Cardin is currently starring in Salem Theatre Company’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone. The irony of being in a play that speaks to how we communicate, expressed in lines such as “remembering requires paper,” is not lost on her.

“To accurately and responsibly document community requires paper," Cardin said. "That says it all.”

 

  • Street Guide is advertiser-driven and will be available for pick-up at select sponsor businesses, which will be listed on both a website and Facebook page. Future plans for subscriptions are being developed.
  • The soft launch of Street Guide takes place after the Thursday evening peformance Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Patrons can receive $3 off their tickets by reserving at info@salemtheatre.com, mention Art Throb, and pay with cash or check at the door.
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