A Brief History of Happy Woman Magazine

By Sharon Grehan-Howes (as told to Sharon Grehan-Howes)

It feels like it was only ten years ago, but in fact it has been ten years and 2 weeks since I first opened the doors to HWHQ. I was young and gorgeous with a dream in my heart and a key in my hand. Armed only with my

certificate from The Devry Institute of Photocopy Technology and Gestetner Awareness and four tubes of Tangee lipstick I set out to conquer the publishing world.

Irene Duma was the first contributing editor, and when not applying makeup or criticizing our mutual friends we created frothy confections that took the woman's magazine world by storm. Within six weeks of launch we were hailed by Netscape (a quaint little engine that ran on kerosene) fêted by USA Today and completely ignored by Vogue.

Those were heady days when a glimpse of an ad banner yielded ten bricks of gold, and in six weeks we were all made millionaires. We lit Cuban cigars with one hundred dollar bills and bought custom Manolos for our cats. However, contrary to our belief that the tech bubble bursting wouldn't affect us at all, we soon found ourselves eating out of vending machines and if our landlord hadn't revealed a penchant for fan dances we most certainly would have ended up operating out of a Fridigaire box under the highway overpass like Infoseek.

It was during this dark time that Savannah Lawless joined our staff as our resident advice columnist.( I say resident but that's not true as Savannah never actually set foot in HWHQ. For some reason she thought we were located in Iceland, so her column Savannah Says was delivered each week by her assistant Elizabeth Hanes, a poor little orphaned waif from New Mexico. Or something like that. We've never actuallly talked to her. To this day we refer to her as" the new girl". She slipped some work over the transom that was very good--so good we suspect someone else must have written it but we published it under her name nonetheless.)

Libby Zimmerman was hired after Savannah and her celebrity interviews got us introduced to several cute lawyers and often relieved us of cash that we would have just used for booze anyway.

We started HWTV in May of 2001 and I promoted Irene Duma to Executive Producer. Kooking with Kathy, Madame Borshka, Booktalk, Cami's Crafts, were all series produced under her watchful eye and our TV movie Portrait of Courage: The Amanda Selnick story received an Emmy* award for "Outstanding Dramatic Film." Our television division closed once we realized were weren't getting limos but it lives on in the hearts and minds of many.(Some of these classic TV shows and films will be rerun over the summer so key your eyes peeled!)

A sex-tape involving Libby Zimmerman and Dustin Diamond almost brought some scandal in late 2006. TMZ contacted us and we braced ourself for an onslaught of publicity but it turns out she'd sent the tape out with insufficent postage. Certainly a cautionary tale.

We were then joined by Elaine Langlois who penned The Skinny and Marni Rebecca Malarkey who wrote The Underwire Chronicles. Each of these columns delighted readers for many years. We also welcomed a host of other talented writers over the decade: Rondi Adamson, Lee Arcuri, Rebecca Ash, Jessica Becht, Julie Bliss, Mike Boone, Rebecca Brock, Mary Ketarkus Brown, Cindy Buchanan, Becky Cardwell, Karen Craig Carter, Vanessa Catanzano, Ellen Cleary, Crystal Click, Ian Coburn, Coushatta Dahomey, Patricia V. Davis,Elizabeth Davis,Patrice Galvin, Turquoise Taylor Grant, Jennifer Gravel Vanasse, Roy Hall, Julie Hansen, Pauline Harder, Beatrice Hatch,T.B. Heeler, Stephen James, Anneli Jarvel, Trudy Jerome, Gemma Kenny, Natalie Friedrich Kidd,Mindi Kohake, Mary, V. Kolar, Linda Konrad, Sarah Lambert, Ulrike Lemmin-Woolfrey, Kristina Lind , Meredith Litt, Debra Marino, Annie McLaughlin, Britta Lin O'Connell, Ryan Reeves, G.X. Robillard , Emma Rowley, Sarah Schaffner Molly Schoemann, Debbie Shave, Susan Shoemaker, Naomi Short , Diane Sokoloski, Katie Sweeney, Sarah Szucs, Valerie Tandoi, Kristen Taylor, Andrew Stephen Taylor-Troutman, ChristianaTosatto, Caitlin Vincent, Jane Wangersky, Jule Ward, Brenda Weiss,Robin Whitsell , Anna Won and Claire Zulkey. Just to name a few.

Our current crop of columnists, Debra Victoroff' and her Goddess Horoscopes, Kate Heidel with Special Reports, Christina Delia and Bride Dish, Pamela Miller with Travel and Pamela Monk as Donna Corleone are the best humorists working anywhere and they've stuck it out for years despite very, very low (no) pay and heaps of abuse. If you've ever seen The Devil Wears Prada, you've seen Mondays at HWHQ . Loulou de la Paumardiere's column 60 rue de Varenne and Emma Rowley's Science column changed the way we looked at the world. (Or perhaps it was the other way around.)

Well that was a giddy tour of the past ten years. Sure we've skipped over a few arrests and "spa" stays but we really must leave something for the tell-all.

Thank you readers!

 

 

 

*Emmy Latimer a blogger living in Etobicoke, Ontario.