Editor's Note

Dear Magazine, This weekend, we threw the magazine its 50th birthday party!! We welcomed alums to a new building, held a poignant focus group, hosted a star-studded panel, socialized at an evening mixer, woke up to a writing workshop with THE Matteo Wong and Marella Gayla, and much much more. More food, more conversations, more bonding, and more excitement for what the next 50 years may hold. One thing felt in abundance this weekend was the idea that magazines are, at their core, about humans, and about collaboration. In a somewhat bleak media landscape, hope remains in these artifacts as a place for creative people to come together and create something both for the world and themselves, and to collect the contributions of many — some named in bylines and some less pronounced — and to piece them together into a cohesive whole, so that each person looks at the finished work and sees their fingerprints on the canvas. This thesis about the core of what it may mean to be on a magazine is also what inspired our own motto this year: Every Issue is Everyone’s Issue. And this issue is no exception. Jack B. Reardon and Caroline G. Hennigan hit the ground running to report on one of our biggest stories yet, published with the incredible work of Olivia Zheng from Design. Betty Nguyen jumped in to take photos in the final hours for Anne Sun’s profile. Siena G. Devine Guzmán from News joined Fifteen Minutes for a night to help confirm quote translations for the interviews Victoria D. Rengel did in Portuguese for her piece on Brazilian voters in Cambridge. Wyatt J. Meyer edited his first piece as a recently onboarded exec, working closely with writers Maria Borrell Ferrero and Khadijah A. Olufayo on their look into a semi-socialist puppet library project that was accompanied by truly stunning photography from Ellen P. Cassidy. Maria Borrell Ferrero then stepped up to write a second piece for this issue, conducting this week’s 15Q on mere hours of notice to make the print deadline possible. Finally, Megan L. Blonigen and Hugo C. Chiasson teamed up to create a truly magical multimedia introspection, and Anna J. Guerrini hopped over from the Editorial Board to write this week’s endpaper. Behind the scenes, each of these pieces was also edited by one of our execs, proofed by another, read carefully by both chairs and the managing editor, and collaborated on with the design and photography boards — who do us more last-minute favors than we could ever sufficiently thank them for. As you can hopefully see, every issue really is everyone’s issue. And we are so grateful to everyone — from the beginning of the mag 50 years ago to now — who has made this possible. MagLove forever more, AJBS + KJK