Freeze Mag Releases Second Issue

With more pages, but fewer copies, Freeze Magazine launched its second issue at a reception last night at the Harvard College Women’s Center.

The previous issue of the magazine, which founder and editor-in-chief Thea L. Sebastian ’08 called a “slightly more academic collegiate oriented version of Cosmopolitan or Seventeen,” came out in December 2005 amidst questions over its financial sustainability.

This year, the magazine printed only 200 copies—3300 fewer copies than last year’s pioneer issue—with grant money from the Ann Radcliffe Trust and the Undergraduate Council.

“[We] printed out exactly as many copies as we had grant money,” Sebastian said.

But despite the limited funds, Freeze’s sophomore issue has expanded in both length and range of content with a 64-page issue, themed “Spring Into Summer.”

“Our last issue was good but I feel like it lacked a certain diversity of content,” Sebastian said. “For this issue we wanted to work on quality, experimenting with new sections, new styles. If you compare the two, they are very different.”

The new issue includes a range of article topics, from “A Girl’s Guide to Baseball” to a fact sheet on the vaccine for the human papilloma virus.

Despite the long gap between editions, Freeze editors hope to publish two more issues next year, and Anita Gutiérrez-Folch ’08, director of publicity, said that the magazine put on a successful recruiting workshop during pre-frosh weekend.

“We’re hoping to fund ourselves completely on advertising,” said Executive Editor Lauren M. Fried ’08.

“We had a lot of positive responses at the pre-frosh activities fair. I hope we can get a really good staff next year.”

According to Sebastian, copies of the magazine will be available free of charge in Lamont Cafe, the Women’s Center, University Health Services, and other venues around campus.

—Staff writer Angela A. Sun can be reached at asun@fas.harvard.edu.