Episode 90: Writing with PIP Magazine with Robyn Rosenfeldt and Morag Gamble

Welcome to  this Permaculture Writer's Club episode of the Sense-making in a Changing World Podcast hosted Morag Gamble. This series is a chance to explore different forms of permaculture writing and speak with a range of authors and publishers. 

Morag is joined here in this conversation by Robyn Rosenfeldt, founding editor and publisher of Pip Magazine.  Come behind the scenes of PIP Magazine - Australia's permaculture magazine, learn what makes a good article or story, what magazine editors are looking for and ways to approach PIP with your story.

Transcript

Morag:

Hello and welcome. My name is Morag Gamble and I'm delighted to welcome you to a special Permaculture Writers Club episode of the Sense-making in a Changing World Podcast. I'm joined by the wonderful Robyn Rosenfeldt, founding editor and publisher of Pip magazine, the permaculture writers club, and since making a changing world podcast hosted by the Permaculture Education Institute. Here we're teaching permaculture teachers around the world and hosting a global permaculture graduate learning community called The permaculture. Hi, we're delighted to be recording this episode here in the beautiful subtropical Gubbi Gubbi country. I hope you enjoy this conversation, make sure you check out the show notes below for all of the links and don't forget to subscribe to get weekly notifications of podcast episodes and to make sure you leave us a five star review because it really does help our little bots to find our podcasts. So let's dive in. 

Well, thank you so much for joining me on the show today, Robyn. For those of you who are listening, Robyn is the founding editor and publisher of Pip magazine, the Australian permaculture magazine, which I'm sure many of you have seen and read and enjoyed. So it's my absolute pleasure to welcome her here today and she's here as part of a series we're running here on the Sense-making in a Changing World Podcast, which is interviewing people who are permacultural writers or publishers. So I'm really excited to welcome Robyn here today. Because in her work, editing and writing this magazine, over many years now she has really looked at the ways to communicate permaculture in a really accessible form and to help people unpack what it means in their everyday lives. So welcome, Robyn, to the show. 

Robyn:

Thank you, Morag. Thanks for having me. 

Morag:

So let's just go right back to the beginning before we launch into the journey of it. Where, however, did Pip begin for you and what gave you the courage and confidence to launch and say, “Yeah, I can start a magazine.” So it's not something everyone does, necessarily.

Robyn:

Yes, it was quite a big thing to do. But I think it's one of those things I just sort of had the idea and started on it. But I guess where it came from was when I first moved up here. So I live in Pambula, a new country (2:29), and we moved here about 12 or13 years ago. Prior to that I was freelancing as a photographer and writer and I came up here and got in touch with this small local magazine called Sustain magazine that was just distributed locally and had a chat with the guy running that sort of thing and he said, “Do you want to help me edit a few articles?” and so I said, “Yeah, okay, no worries.” and then we did that issue and then we caught up after that and he said, “Do you want to be the editor?” Because basically he was doing the whole thing by himself and it was reaching burnout. So for me, I was like, “Yeah, great! Awesome.” I had two little kids at the time and it's sort of I could fit it in when they're asleep, sort of, or when I should have been asleep as these things happen and I saw the way that that was run and it was very basic. It was very kind of grassroots and just making it happen and it didn't quite work. It was sort of this way it was set up. It didn't really work. It wasn't really viable to keep going. 

So when that finished, I did a permaculture design course with John Champaign, who lives locally here, and he worked on Sustain magazine with me and he was saying, “There's no permaculture magazine in Australia, like there's a UK one and a US one. But there's no Australian one and permaculture started in Australia.” and I think it had been 10 years at the time since the PIJ, which was run out of Australia, the Permaculture International Journal. So I thought, “Why not?” I was seven months pregnant at the time with a four year old and a two year old, better thing to do than today. So obviously I knew I couldn't start it right away, being in that situation with a newborn about to pop up. But I just started working on it. So I was home with the kids anyway, I wasn't working. I've got a great photo actually here. So my office space is in a shed on my property, which is like a converted barn and we actually lived in here for a couple of years while we built the house and so it was around on the kitchen table in here that I started at and a woman who worked with me on Sustain started on that journey and then she probably sensibly decided it was too much for her to do with a family already. But I've got this great photo of me with my baby on my hip and my two year old drawing pictures and her daughter and sitting there with our laptops kind of coming up with the idea and basically, it was just a sort of slow process of, in the little snippets of time, I got to just work out how am I going to do this? What articles do we want? What do we want it to look like? And having spent a little bit of time on that other magazine I did have a really clear vision of what I thought worked, what I thought didn't work and also looking around at the other magazines at the time which I thought we may have been lacking a little bit at that time. So, I just sort of put one foot in front of the other.

Morag:

I remember you started with just two issues a year as well, as a way just to make it a bit more spacious yourself, which was very sensible.

Robyn:

Well, I started off going to four issues a year and then I just went on and I thought, “Why not? I can do two, it doesn't matter.” and it was better to start with two because printing eight issues is quite an expensive process and you want to sort of make sure it's working and before you start committing to doing that four times a year. So I'm plus yet getting four issues out a year is a lot more work. Then we went to three a few years later and then a few years after that, we went to four.

Morag:

So in your words, what is the vision of Pip?

Robyn:

Well, the vision of Pip is to reach out to everyday people, a wide spectrum of the community, and communicate the ideas of permaculture and sustainable living and caring for the planet and make it accessible and attractive. Something that people want to find out about and want to live and see it as a positive thing, rather than something you've got to give up or something that's hard or so I guess it's kind of like a lifestyle magazine rather than selling expensive holidays and expensive cars with selling growing veggies and reducing your waste and reducing your impact on the planet.

Morag:

So how do you differentiate yourself between other magazines in that space? Have you purposely tried to fill a niche or are you kind of reaching out more broadly?

Robyn:

Well, when I started Pip a lot of the other magazines in this space were quite a little bit daggy? I don't mean that in a bad way. I love that kind of simple, rustic kind of look. But it wasn't necessarily appealing to the masses, it sort of spoke. My big thing in the beginning was not to just preach to the converted. So there's a lot of people out there who are already doing all this stuff and already know about it and they love reading about it,  but my thing was really to try and speak to anyone. So if the magazines are lying on a coffee table in someone's house or a table in a cafe, someone will pick it up because it looks attractive or there's one article that might interest them and once they get into the magazine, then the world opens up to all these other ideas that they may not have thought of. So it might be that they're just interested in reducing their waste a bit and then while they're there, they're like, “Oh, what's regenerative agriculture? Or, “What's his market garden about or clothes swaps off food swaps off?” So I guess it was at that stage, it was really to broaden the appeal and take it to the masses, so to speak, and I mean it's been nearly 10 years since I started and have it already. That's amazing. Well, it's been nine years since we first published and so 10 years since I started thinking about it? Well, my daughter's nearly 11, who I was pregnant with, sp that would be 11 years. It's really interesting to see how all these ideas have become more mainstream in that time. You would have seen that too. Once upon a time people, what's permaculture and what's a KeepCup? and those simple things that are now so common and it's by the work of all these different people have all been doing things and just the general kind of movement of where we're heading and I won't go into it, but the whole world so I think. 

Morag:

What's been sort of as one of the most surprising things that you've noticed by being involved in there? Have you noticed anything you weren't expecting to ever respond to it? 

Robyn:

The COVID pandemic was surprising and the response during that was just suddenly, boom, the whole world. But from my perspective, in Australia, we saw it across the board, ceilings were set, well first of all the cupboards, the shelves went empty in shops and then people like, “Oh, well now I’ll grow my own food” then the seedlings have disappeared and then anything related to that sort of thing. For us the interest and people coming to our website and subscribing just jumped dramatically and I'm sure you've experienced that too. But permaculture practitioners and people running courses, they're all booked out and so that was a beautiful surprise that people turned to that and I think there was a little bit of, “Okay, pandemic cyber seedlings dying on the windowsill but a little bit” There was also a huge proportion of society that's gone, “Oh this is pretty cool, growing my own food and practicing all these things.” I think the other beautiful thing with that was people getting to know their local area more and becoming more connected with not just their own area, but nature as well and I think that was beautiful. It was obviously really difficult in a lot of ways, but that side of it was really interesting to see.\

Morag:

So for you, what makes a good story and what are the two sides of this question: One is what are the stories that you notice that get the most interest or the most appealing to people and for you as an editor and a writer? What do you see as the elements of a good story? What are you looking for when you're seeking out stories to share?

Robyn:

Well, there's kind of a couple of sides to stories. There's kind of the informative stories and then there's the inspirational stories, so we sort of try and have a mix of the two. So either you're learning something - so for me, it's always like what is the reader gonna get out of it? It's all very well to tell your story about whatever. But what's the reader gonna go, “Oh, cool, that was really interesting. I can use that in my life.” or maybe I can do something like that if it's inspirational. So that's the first thing I'm sort of looking for, making sure that there's something that you can really grasp out of the story and take with you. Starting this magazine and living the way I do, for me, it was just like what do I want to know about? In the beginning, it was like, what do I want to learn and so whenever I'm reading and editing an article, I know the questions that someone would be wanting to ask who's interested in it. So that's an important point and I think the other thing is not just doing something that's already been done. I mean, some things they've done and it's still worth revisiting them, but what's a slightly different angle to that and how can we make sure all those questions are going to be answered that someone reading this article is going to be asking? I think if you're living that life, you can kind of think that a bit or even if you're not living it, but you want to be, you can say, “Well, I don't know the answers to that. What would I want to know if I'm going to want to do it?” So with the inspirational stories, I think, the great stories about people doing amazing things other people might not particularly be trained in a certain way or have a certain experience, but they've just sort of given something ago. Especially the sort of things of setting up market garden, like you're talking about urban agriculture, where it's just people saying you need getting together and fulfilling that night directly with people and I love those stories and where you can see that direct return to the community and to the people involved who just don't get so much out of it.

Morag:

What I noticed is as a storyteller in a different format through YouTube or podcasting or even as an educator that often people don't know that there's a story and what they're doing, like they're just doing it. So how do you come across these stories that you want to tell? Is it by word of mouth or the people who approach you?

Robyn:

It's a bit of a mix of all of those things, really. So the story is about other people. It's people that you just stumble across in your travels or if you're not moving around just on the internet or through other people. When we also have regular writers who contribute and they might come up with ideas or I'm always asking our readers in our audience to let us know if you got any great ideas, even if you're not going to write it, if you know someone that's doing something amazing. I think it's just having that eye for when you meet someone or talk to someone and going, “Wow, that's, that's quite interesting.” And I think if you find it interesting, then someone else will, too.

Morag:

So you've got a whole lot of segments throughout the magazine, how did you come up with that as your spread of the sort of the structure that holds the magazine together?

Robyn:

I've been doing that since the beginning and I remember exactly how I came up with it. But it was just that idea of wanting to cover those diverse topics and fruit - it's not all gardening, it's not all about the home build, or the built environment, it's not all about eating, it's covering all of it. Because we all live off all of those aspects and I think if we can talk to all of them, it's really good and it allows it to appeal to a wide range of people as well. So you might not think you're interested in how a house is built, but then you look at this house and like, “Wow, that is actually really interesting” and you learn something you might be able to incorporate into your life or whether it's aid or nurture or profiles or family we'd sometimes have and making creating all those things. I just think it's just reaching out and trying to cover all those different ideas that people have an interest in.

Morag:

In the kind of readership that you have, I wonder have you noticed there's been a change? Who have been your main bulk of readers throughout? And has that shifted at all over the decade that you've been doing this?

Robyn:

Yes,, I think it is sort of 70% 75% female to male and I've seen it's right across the spectrum, really. But if we were going to sort of narrow it down, like there's probably a larger proportion of readers who are in the - it used to be the 30 to 50 year old age group - but over time that has become younger, especially with our online audience, we've noticed that that's quite a younger demographic. Well, again, it's right across the board, but the peak of it is in that younger sort of demographic. So I think having the digital which can speak to people who aren't sort of in the practice of picking up a magazine is important as well as having the print where, I think, the beauty of print is, We’re on our screens too much. At home, they're just stuck on these screens, while not everyone, but for a lot of people and the beauty of the magazine and books and things like that is you can sit down, get away from your screen and just read it and be in a totally different space where you're not kind of getting distracted all the time with all these other things popping up.

Morag:

I think the other beautiful thing about that, and it's my dad who used to say this about picking up a newspaper, so it's about the surprising things that you see when you're looking at something else and all of a sudden you flip the page and there's something that you hadn't looked for or an algorithm hasn't chosen for you. But there's this spread, I mean, you as an editor have chosen this selection of things, but you wouldn't necessarily search for it on the internet and there it is. And you’d go, “Oh, that's an interesting thing”  the surprise you get when you open up the next page and think, “Oh, gosh, that's really, really interesting.

Robyn:

Yes and I guess that's quite what I like is that by having those different segments, people do have their eyes open to something that they might have never thought of and they might not change or do anything about it right now. But it's just an idea that's in their head that, “Oh, that's a way of doing things. That's interesting.”

Morag:

It opens up the perspective.

Robyn:

Yeah, just planting a little seed that maybe they never do anything about or maybe in 10 years or five years, they’d go, “Maybe I could think about doing that differently.” I guess I was just gonna say one thing that I've tried to get across is it's all about all these great things you can do to not live more lightly, but alongside that is the possibility of creating this sense of guilt if you're not doing it all and I really try to avoid that. Because I know what it's like, we're busy, some of us have kids, you're working, you're trying to do all this stuff and you know that that would be the ideal way to do this and it would be ideal not to use any plastic and it would be ideal to ride my bike. But the reality is that we can't, not everyone can do all those things. Well, no one can do all of them. So I do try and get across that just give one thing a go. Iit is a bit of a balance between trying to share all these great ideas without saying it would be nice if we all did them. But we do have to realize that so many people have got so much on their plates that and I think at the moment, it seems there's a lot of people struggling just to get through life at the moment that we serve. I don't want to put this across in a way that is judgmental or making people feel bad. So that's something that I've always been aware of in anything that we're publishing, that it's not judgmental or saying someone's bad because they're not doing it. Because everyone's just on their own journey trying to do what they can do and it's more about just presenting ideas for people.

Morag:

I think another thing that you do, as well as to any mentioned, this start was trying to make it as beautiful as possible, like appealing an invitation. How much attention, when you're mapping out a magazine, do you put towards art and imagery and the visual structure of the magazine? And are there possibilities of people contributing in that way to the magazine, even if it's not through a story or an idea, but it's actually through a visual idea?

Robyn:

Yes, definitely. Imagery is very important, especially photography. So my background is in photography. So that was always a really important part of it, that we have beautiful imagery. I'm always pretty fascinated when we get to that end of the game, putting it together, it's like, “Hmmm, I don’t like that picture” I think it's important to make things appealing and to look beautiful and in imagery, we're always on the lookout for - my designer who designs the magazine does all the little illustrations, but the cover art is a big thing at issue where we're looking for artists who we like their style and we feel like they understand our subject matter and then work with them to come up with a cover and I guess that's been one of our points of differences. Having that artwork rather than a photo, because I felt like, which was sort of surprising, because I'm a photographer and in some ways, it might have been easier if I just had a photo, I could just take it or I could get someone to. But I think the beauty of the artwork is that it's something different and I think with photos, you do sometimes need to be careful that it's not another picture of someone holding a vegetable and smiling and I mean, I love those pictures, and they are so appealing, but I just wanted to have something that was maybe a bit different and stood out a bit.

Morag:

What about poetry? Do you have poetry in the magazine?

Robyn:

Not really. I have been asked that a few times. It's something I've considered. We would have to create a space for it. Because like I say, at the moment, it's sort of like it's informative or it's inspirational. So it's not something we're doing at the moment, but I am open to it and I've had that discussion a few times over the years.

Morag:

And the KidSpace. There's a couple of questions about how much of the space do you dedicate to it being around kids? And do you get much feedback from young people saying that they really enjoy getting into doing activities that are there or is it more for the parents to share activities with their kids, what's your feedback?

Robyn:

I guess it's probably a bit of both, but maybe it's more the younger kids doing it. A lot of the time we get sent videos or photos or emails saying the kids love it, the magazine comes and everyone's fighting over it, which is a beautiful thing that it actually appeals to the whole family. Recently, someone sent me some photos of her lying in bed with two kids doing the word find and reading the jokes and looking at the pictures of other kids growing food and pretty sure we had that from the beginning. But yeah, I guess in the beginning, my kids were in that age bracket and I thought, “Yeah, let's have something that's going to engage them and get them into finding something in the magazine that's for them.” and everyone likes a word find and a bad vegetable joke. Who doesn't like a bad vegetable joke? That doesn't even have to just be kids, I think, you're appealing and a coloring in the whole adult coloring in space is massive. Just having a little bit in there for kids to get into and so one of the sections is cherish the garden and it's kids in the garden with whatever they're growing or whatever they're doing. I actually got sent a video just last week of this kid opening up the magazine to his picture, because he was the last one and he was just so “Oh, wow, there's me.” I think that's a wonderful, beautiful thing to see that it's actually respected and loved that you're growing food and that's a really positive thing.

Morag:

The other thing that I really like in what you're doing is when you talk about respect, it's like giving support and respect to this community in throughout Australia, who are engaging this one about sharing their stories, whether it be the children doing it or whether it be people in the community, but you also step out further. You have people's wards and you're supporting things like urban agriculture month. So when these things happen, does the writing then shift into that or is that sort of more of an outward facing thing that you do? Or is there like an interface between your writing and the programs that you're engaging with?

Robyn:

Well, it depends on the program. The other thing is we've got the print magazine, which comes out quarterly and there's a bit of lead time for that. So if there's an event coming up, it's not necessarily linked to that. But because we have a website where we have articles going up regularly and we have a newsletter which goes out every two weeks and we have podcasts and we have videos, so we have sort of these other places where we can sort of reflect what's going on within the community. Like, if it's more of a quicker turnaround, something's coming up in a month. Well, it's going to miss the next issue. So I guess it's a bit of both. Sometimes, say, with urban agriculture month, you might get an idea from something that they're doing that you can flesh out and turn it into a story and sometimes you can offer ideas of people with the Australian permaculture convergences and maybe suggest people, that I've come across, that I think would be really interesting to look at and talk to. So I guess it sort of goes both ways. 

Robyn:

Do you have any broader conversations with other magazines or global networks of permaculture people? Or do you just kind of work in your own space? Does it feel like there's this global voice of permaculture writers that you feel like there's a presence of that?

Robyn:

I sort of tried reaching out to some other sort of symbol of the publication's, but sometimes people aren't as open to discussing in some ways. But I think, because I guess there's that worry that maybe you're gonna double up or whatever and I always sort of like the idea of looking in other magazines. So often I'll look in another magazine, I'm like, “That's the article we're doing or there is this sort of global consciousness that often the same articles are coming up” and it's like, they either come out just after our, so ours comes out just after this, and it almost feels like we're on the same level. So, in some ways, I like to not be too influenced by it because I did subconsciously do that. I'm always getting books, I get sent books, a lot of books to look at and to review and I think often when there's some really good ones, we'll take some of that and we'll work with that writer and get them to publish some of their book within the magazine and it sort of gives people a taste of the book and then if you want to know more about this, you can go and buy the book and read the whole 100 pages, or however many pages and turn to 500. So I think there's a lot of great work going on out there with different people who specialize in their field and I do try and connect with those people, because they've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about it and working on it if they've written the whole book on it. I think it's great to try and connect with those people and try and wave their ideas through our pages as well.

Morag:

So what kind of, maybe it could be a permaculture book or something related, what are you reading or what are you writing that's inspiring you at the moment?

Robyn:

I have a pile, I get a lot of books and a lot of them are pretty practical. So as opposed to sort of going into big ideas and thinking, “Well, that's sort of philosophical.” I think the books that I find quite - I'm sort of talking more in the sense of the magazine, but the books that are sort of taking things that we might already know but maybe just giving it a slightly different angle than what you're used to reading about.

Morag:

What are you reading that's inspiring you at the moment? Because I think when we start to pour our imagination into something, we need to keep filling our own cup. Just wondering, is there something that you're finding that after 10 years of writing out that keeps you inspired and keeps you thinking differently or finding different angles or new perspectives on things?

Robyn:

Well,  there's a lot of books, there's so many books. Some of the books that I've been looking at lately were Matthew Evans books, which just came out as the real food companion. I really liked that, because there's a lot of books that come out that you sort of go, “Yeah, I kind of seen this before” and I don't mean any disrespect to those authors. They're beautiful books and they're full of great information. But I guess for me, because I get so many, I'm looking for those books that have taken it maybe to the next level. So I found Matthew Evans’ book interesting in that way and I'm just looking at this one that's in front of me, the Food Saver’s A-Z: The essential Cornersmith kitchen companion. Again, it's a similar companion with lots of information. But it's got that slightly different angle of just trying to use what you've got and it's not about, “Okay, go to the shop and buy this and buy this buy that.” Actually, realizing that all food convenience, the First Nations Food companion, which also has that sort of side to it. So when there's those sorts of books and then there's books by people who are kind of looking into exploring the world of soil or those sorts of things that we really need to sort of grasp on a deeper level that actually really change the way that the average person thinks about things.

Morag:

Do you ever get sent children's permaculture books like books for young people? 

Robyn:

I do and we always offer them as giveaways in that kids section of the book. So I've got a few here. But they're not necessarily permaculture, but they're kids. This one is about Amy's balancing act about clean energy and so it's a metropolis, which is sort of about the city and nature and I do get sent the occasional permaculture kids book and I think what's really great to see that there's that avenue for trying to break down some of those bigger ideas and put them into a simple idea that kids can kind of understand.

Morag:

Yes, I'm just trying to work out at the moment some people who I've worked with in the course are like creating these amazing books, all in Korean. We're trying to work out like, how do I get published in Australia? Because it's fantastic and I love the idea of being able to distill big concepts into something really visual and tangible and that builds that kind of ecoliteracy right from the beginning. 

Robyn:

Yes, there's a lot of good books around that. I guess it's finding the right publisher who has that passion for that.

Morag:

So where do you see there being gaps or maybe openings, even for people in terms of writing? You get so many books that are coming across your desk and there's so many stories that you're telling. Where do you feel like the whole parts are not being explored yet or possibilities for new riders to step in and explore that space?

Robyn:

Good question. I think just trying to find a unique angle is the trick and I think it's about finding the thing that you're really interested in and passionate about. So I think, trying to just get all the interesting angles and just making something that's not your thing probably isn't going to work, but finding your take on it. So I think everyone's got a slightly different take and I think the more personal, our articles, we don't really look for personal kind of first person articles. But I think we all have a particular angle that we look at the world in and I think there's a lot of people that are looking at the world from a pretty similar angle. So I think, if you can kind of encapsulate that and speak to that, then you're probably going to be speaking much more closely to a whole range of people who are in that same little angle, then if you sort of try and be too broad and appeal to everybody.

Morag:

Can you talk a little bit more about this approach, different approach, to writing for a magazine as opposed to writing a book? For example, there was some distinction that you made there in passing about writing first person and third person.

Robyn:

But I guess for what we're doing, it's not to get too involved in the first person, but it's sort of about making sure that you're giving the reader the information that they need without. I think sometimes as writers, for some people, it's easy to get caught up in your experience and how you felt and which is interesting to a degree, but sometimes people can get a little bit lost in that and we try and sort of keep it. It's not that we're trying to make it impersonal, but just to get those messages across. But I think with writing for the magazine, it's really important to just keep it simple. So keep the language simple. Keep the like and break it down. So it's easily digestible. So headings and subheadings and having a point. So rather than one long article that goes from one idea to the other, just simple things like having little subheadings that just break it down. So if someone's scanning, which I think people do more and more nowadays, and I think our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, I think that's the beauty of a magazine. They're short articles, lots of images, some subheadings that you can kind of break it down and get to the point without being confronted with four pages of dense text that you don't know where to start and stop and you can't just scan it and get an idea of what it's about.

Morag:

Very nice. So how would people get in touch with you about sending in articles? Like if they were wanting if they had an idea? Do you have a guide to pitch an article to you or how would you like people to approach you?

Robyn:

Well, we do. I'm pretty sure there's contributed guidelines on our website. Still, I will check after we have to make sure they're still there, they were there once upon a time. I guess we have, so you can email to editorial@pipmagazine.com.au and what we're after is a clear pitch about what the story is, what you're going to communicate to the reader, what are the points and the topics you're going to cover, and also potentially some examples of some work that if you haven't written for us before, some examples so that we can kind of see your style. I'm not saying you have to be a published writer, but just an example of the sort of work you can do and also images are great if you have related images that are good quality, preferably not on a phone, but some of the phones are pretty good quality nowadays. So if they're good quality pictures, yes, and we do have that in our contributor Guidelines Group we're looking for in photography. But I think it is really clear. So not sort of just going, “This is the idea, this is what it's going to communicate. These are the topics it's going to cover” because that makes it really easy. Because otherwise, it's very easy when you're having those conversations for one person to be saying one thing and imagining one thing and the person listening to be imagining something completely different and then getting the article and realizing those two world's degree guidelines (42:40). I think just being really clear about what it is exactly you were thinking about writing

Morag:

Do you have a different approach to doing digital articles or is that something that you do in house?

Robyn:

Oh, no, we're always interested in that. The only thing is we have a pretty shoestring publication that doesn't have a huge budget for editorial and we pay, we don't have a lot of budget for the free content. Because we're always looking for articles for both. But the print is probably something we're actively trying to, because we've got four issues a year to put out and have lots of great articles in or even if you don't have an idea, but you're interested in writing, that's another possibility.

Morag:

Do you have things that are coming up that you release?

Robyn:

We used to sort of have themed issues that had a theme and we would have sort of maybe three or four articles, particularly on that theme, and then the rest might be a bit related to it. Because we have those different sections, we tend to be fairly broad. So it's not necessarily that an issue is themed around a certain thing. Sometimes it is, like if we can see what's going on in the world and we can see that there's a need for a certain type of article, we might focus more on that sort of theme. But it's not really something that's planned ahead that we're going to have this theme and this theme and to be more organic. We tend to ideally have the whole year planned out and we're going to be this, this, this and this but it's a bit more organic.

Morag:

I understand that. But what's on the horizon in the foreseeable future? Have you got anything new that's coming into the mix?

Robyn:

Well, we're looking potentially at creating some sort of one off publication. So having some themes where we have our issues that come out, but potentially just a little extra publication that comes out that's on a particular theme. So that's in the Pipeline. And the thing that we've done, a big thing that we did over the last year, was get all of our back issues on our own website. So digital subscriptions used to be sent off to a third party website that hosted it, but there were always problems with it and the people that signed up there, we had no connection to we didn't know who they were, we couldn't speak to them. So we spent quite a lot of time building this whole system to have. So we've got every article now on our website that you can get a digital subscription and you get access to all of those. And then, rather than a sort of PDF that you're trying to zoom in on your phone there are articles that are device optimized. Some people fight, like, I was saying that the younger age group goes more digital, but also there's people that don't want the paper and the postage and things like that. So it's good to have both those options for people. But we do find a lot of people go digital, and they actually go, “I changed my mind.” There’s just something with sitting there with the printed paper. 

Morag:

Do you have any subscriptions from around the world as well as Australia?

Robyn:

Yes, we do. Unfortunately, with the print, the postage is quite expensive. But even when you add the postage on, it's not too ridiculous, compared to some subscription with something. We have people dotted around the world that get their little copy of Pip sent out and go across the waters, which is a lovely thought to say that, and someone the other day sent me a photo of a copy of Pip on a table in a cafe in the northern part of New Zealand, which isn't that far flung. But it was just interesting to see that. It's there and I've heard other people say they've come across it overseas. I would love to be able to expand that a bit more, but one thing at a time at the moment.

Morag:

So coming up next year in April is the Australasian Permaculture Convergence in Adelaide and how many issues have you got leading up to that? Is there going to be any? Because it's been a while since it's been one.

Robyn:

Yes. So there's this issue where we've talked about it and I think we talked about in the last issue and then there's one more issue before that comes out. But, that's sold out already. Nike, so but (48:17)

Morag:

Yes, I know. I missed it. But I think I'm speaking so I think I managed to get a place.

Robyn:

Yeah. So that's a big sign. I think that because I know, most years, it's like China, people are trying to get as many people as possible. But this year, it's sold out. Months and months before the events even.

Morag:

It'd be nice if there was a chance of actually getting a bigger venue to let more people in.

Robyn:

Yes. Well, it sounds like there's some discussion about that. But yeah, sure. Other details.

Morag:

Well, thank you for taking the time to talk. Permaculture, publishing, permaculture, writing permaculture magazine. I know that from your beginnings of where it all started to now, you've really taken permaculture into the right word, but into the mainstream. The magazine is available in so many places now. These permaculture stories are available in ways that I don't think have been before. So thank you for that work that you do behind the seeds. I know. It's a huge job that you do. I see how much effort goes into it and it's phenomenal. Thank you.

Robyn:

My pleasure. It's great to do it and it's great to be supported by people like yourself and all the great work that you're doing to communicate and in a different sphere, in a different way and I think it's all those people together, kind of taking permaculture to the masses.

Morag:

Well, I just feel like it's what we need in terms of one planet living and addressing all the things that we're facing in the world and finding what is the new story of how to live well. And it's not necessarily a new story, it's a very old story. The twists and turns and ways that it makes sense run now here in our own communities, whether that be urban or rural, or wherever. So that diversity of different ways that people are bringing it to life, I think it's so nice to see and hear and read and somehow, there's something great coming. I know, when I pick up a magazine, it's like, “Okay, the world is the world is…” Well, we dive into those stories. There's people everywhere in every neighborhood doing this kind of thing and I think that's what brings forward for me.

Robyn:

Yes and I think it's telling what you're doing to people about how to do these things that once upon a time, my grandmother's might have shown us or our grandfathers or our extended families and we would have learnt as we grew up and sometimes we haven't had that opportunity to learn in that way and so it's putting all that information out there for when people do want to find it and they're ready, it's there.

Moag:

Well, thank you so much.

Robyn:

Thanks, Morag,

Morag:

I look forward to the next issue coming out. I'm still in the midst of the current one that's just landed and I’m enjoying it. All right. Take care. Thanks. Bye.