Transcript of CS#69: Faith and Family Magazine Danielle Bean
Transcript of Interview with Danielle Bean about Faith and Family Magazine. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com
Listen Now to the audio version of the show.
Faith and Family Magazine is available at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-gifts/2005031/Faith-Family-Magazine-1-Year-Subscription/
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Chris: This is the Catholic Spotlight, the podcast where we talk about what’s new, cool and exciting in the Catholic marketplace. I’m your host, Chris Cash, director of E-Commerce from catholiccompany.com, your source for all your Catholic needs.
And today in the spotlight, we’re welcoming back a repeat guest, Danielle Bean, Senior Editor of Faith and Family magazine, as well as the brand new faithandfamilylive.com. Welcome back, Danielle.
Danielle: Hi, great to be here, Chris.
Chris: Danielle, it has been such a pleasure to see faithandfamilylive.com get up and get going. We got to participate a little bit in the give-away and give away some books, which was fun as well.
Danielle: Um-huh.
Chris: So…so thank you for inviting us to be part of that and…
Danielle: Oh, sure.
Chris: So why don’t you tell our listeners just a little bit about Faith and Family live and the Family magazine and right they do kind of mirror each other just a bit.
Danielle: Yes, they do, and their mission is the same in both places. Faith and Family live has kind of been offshoot of the print magazine, it’s our online way of communicating with our readers.
We have a group blog set up there where I blog along with Rachel Balducci and Lisa Hendey, Arwen Mosher and Rebecca Teti, all Catholic mom bloggers in their own right and, you know, we launched this the beginning of last month and we’ve had a really successful launch and been getting lots of readership there and lots of interesting conversations about various aspects of Catholic family life and Catholic living, so it’s been really encouraging to have such a great start to our online version.
Chris: So, why don’t we talk first about Faith and Family magazine then…
Danielle: Sure.
Chris: …which we just recently been added to the Catholic Company Catalog. Whoo-hoo!
Danielle: Yay!
Chris: And we’re very happy to have Faith and Family in our catalog now, so you want to talk to
us about what kind of content our listeners would find in a Faith and Family magazine now?
Danielle: Sure. We call ourselves a magazine of Catholic living and that really is our goal, is to be a practical source of support and inspiration to people who are striving to live Catholic lives, Catholic family lives. Moms in particular, we have a particular focus on moms and their interests.
We try to have a healthy balance between spiritual reading and practical support and encouragement, inspiration. You’re going to find a little bit of everything, everything from recipes and cooking to product ideas and product reviews to articles about spirituality, marriage, parenting. We really just strive to support Catholics in all the different aspects of their family lives.
Chris: Now, how did you get involved in the first place with Faith and Family magazine?
Danielle: Well, I was a big fan of the magazine from the start and I’m sort of a magazine junkie and l love women’s magazine and I just really got attached to Faith and Family as a Catholic version of what I loved in other women’s magazine, the kind of practical support and tips and recipes and decorating ideas but I love that has a Catholic twist to it and you’re not going to find anything contrary to your faith in these pages, so I was a fan for years and then when I began my freelance writing career, I round up writing quite a bit for them and becoming a senior writer and then when the senior editor position opened up, I got it, so it’s just been great, it’s been like this love affair between me and Faith and Family right along. I love it.
Chris: You make it sound so easy. I just….how do…
Danielle: Well, if you’re talking about making the transition from freelance writing to editing a magazine, that’s kind of a leap there, it’s a pretty big difference and it’s a different kind of work and not everybody who enjoys freelance writing would enjoy freelance editing, for sure, but…
Chris: I wouldn’t imagine so.
Danielle: Right, right, but there’s been such an overlap between, you know, my interests and the interest of the magazine and I just….I have felt a real connection with the magazine from the start.
Chris: Now, how do you…you have eight children, right?
Danielle: That’s right.
Chris: Now how do you work around the schedules of your children in trying…I believe…correct me if I’m wrong, that you also work from home?
Danielle: That’s right. Yeah, I work completely from home and….
Chris: How do you work around all of the craziness of having eight kids and trying to get your responsibilities taken care of for Faith and Family and Faith and Family live?
Danielle: Um-huh, well, that’s a very good question. It’s always a balance and it can be really difficult but I always tell people that my biggest secret weapon is the fact that I’ve got a supportive husband who is able to be home a lot. He happens to work really close to home and he’s a Catholic school teacher and he has breaks in his days where he’s able to be home for two or three hours at a time and he can be home and help out with things while I get something done.
That said, you know, working from home, you just have to be flexible going into it, you just have to have the idea that, you know, maybe you’re going to have everything planned out, exactly when you’re going to get your work and that’s not going to happen, you’re going to end up having get it done later and it’s very helpful to me that I easily stay up late at night. Other people that I know that work from home get up early and that’s not my thing, I stay up late, I get lots done at night after the kids have gone to bed. I also just manage…
Chris: I do too, I think.
Danielle: Right. Yeah, I just manage to do little bits here and there. I think writing, in particular, is very mom-friendly because you can do little bit here and there.
You can work on things in your head and then when you finally get time to sit in front of a computer, you’ve got a lot of it already worked out and you can just kind of pound it out. At least that’s the way it’s worked for me.
Chris: And now my mind is a blank, so…you get me talking about working from home and I start thinking about my working from home and, boy, then you start thinking about the kids and, “Oh, what are they doing now?”
Danielle: Yeah, right.
Chris: Now do you home school your children or are they at the Catholic school or…
Danielle: They’re home schooled and my husband helps me with that a lot as well, being a teacher, I think it comes more naturally to him than to me.
I have to be there for a lot of a day to day and get things done type of thing but he’s really a great help with a lot of the hands on and a lot of the planning ahead of time.
Chris: Wow, I just can’t even fathom home schooling that many children as well having a full time career like that.
Danielle: Well, I just find that our life just kind of…all the different parts of it, although they seem overwhelming if you look at them all individually, they kind of weave together in a way that somebody on the outside might be able to understand or see, but it works for us.
Chris: And that’s what’s important, I would say.
Danielle: Exactly.
Chris: So getting back to Faith and Family magazine, you sent me over some notes about things that are going on with Faith and Family, so let’s…I’d like to just kind of go down the list here.
Danielle: Right.
Chris: And make sure that we hit all the highlights of what is going on with Faith and Family magazine and Faith and Family live.com, which, by the way, for the sake of our listeners, right now…if you’re listening to this right now in…this will be at the end of August, 2008, Faith and Family live.com has all the content from Faith and Family magazine available but eventually that is not going to be the case unless you have the subscription service from Faith and Family live, so…
Danielle: That’s right.
Chris: …if you listen to this….listening to this a few months from now, don’t count on all of this being available without joining the subscription service.
Danielle: That’s right.
Chris: But if you’re listening now, you’re in luck.
Danielle: Well, the blog content is available, subscribers or not and currently the magazine content is…it’s not…not all the archives are up yet but it…we’re working on it and we’ve got two issues right now that are up and very soon we’re going to have our most recent issue available on line as well, so those are going to be available to everybody but eventually the magazine content online is going to be subscriber only, just like you said, Chris.
So, yeah…you’ll…if you enjoy what you see, you’re going to want to get yourself a subscription so that you won’t miss out.
Chris: And….so starting off, you’ve got an announcement about your second annual writing contest coming up?
Danielle: That’s right. Yeah, we’ve got a writing contest that we’re…we started one last year and it’s for school kids and…hang on a second, Chris. I’ve got to find the page that we have all the information on.
Chris: I’m glad to know I’m not the only one that’s like that.
Danielle: Here I am just looking. I thought I had this bookmarked. Hang on. Okay, I’ve got it.
Chris: Hey, I’ve got the questions up in front of me. I know what I’m doing.
Danielle: Yeah, you’re organized. Okay. This year’s contest, the theme is called, “The Pope and me,” and we’re doing this through schools but home schools are also eligible for it.
There are two different age categories, there are 3rd to 5th graders and then there’s 6th to 8th graders and what we’re asking the kids to do is write essays of 500 words or less on the subject of what does the Pope expect from young people in America today and this was really popular last year when we first started and we give out a cash prize of $250.00 and the winning essays and the photos of the authors are published in our March-April issue each year and the winner’s school or the family receive free issues of the March-April issue of Faith and Family magazine, so we’re really hopeful to get the word out and get lots of people…lots of kids started writing on what does the Pope expect from young people in America today.
We got some really…really creative entries last year and we’re looking for more of the same.
Chris: Well, that sounds like a good topic.
Danielle: Right.
Chris: That’s…that’s…
Danielle: Right, it is.
Chris: …something we should be thinking about, especially as young people.
Danielle: Exactly. So if you go to faithandfamilylive.com or if you look in the September-October issue on page 42, you can get all the information that you need for…
Chris: Oh, you’re organized now.
Danielle: Right. That’s right.
Chris: Even the page number, alright. Now is this issue already available…
Danielle: Yes.
Chris: …on newsstands and so forth?
Danielle: Right, it’s just hot off the presses, so, yeah, it’s just newly available now,
Chris: Okay. And, also included you have an interview with Leah Derrow, who I have never heard of but sounds like they’re pretty famous, right?
Danielle: That’s right. Well, Leah Derrow, she was a model on America’s Top Model, the reality show and she’s got…
Chris: I’ve seen a couple episodes of that.
Danielle: Okay.
Chris: Didn’t seem very holy, the ones I saw.
Danielle: No, well that….that was…that’s part of her story.
If you read her interview there she’s got a really great story about her personal conversion and going from being a runway model and the kind of vanity and pride and materialism that she was immersed in to really embracing her Catholic state.
That particular interview is part of ongoing feature that we have at Faith and Family where we talk to people who are prominent, prominent people of Catholic backgrounds, about their faith and their faith journey so some of the past people we’ve done have been like Troy Polamalu of the Steelers and different people who have been involved in movies or television and just prominent people who have a Catholic background and are able to speak about their Catholic faith.
Maybe they don’t practice it perfectly and maybe they haven’t always practiced it perfectly but it’s something they can talk about and they really value the kind of background that it has given them in their lives.
Chris: You know, personally, I’ve always wanted to try to get an interview with like Bill O’Reilly on my show.
Danielle: Yeah, that would be great.
Chris: Not that he’s got a fully magisterially understanding of the faith but just from a standpoint of he’s a very influential guy in the media…
Danielle: Um-huh.
Chris: …who espouses his Catholic faith and I’d like to understand better how his faith works in his life there.
Danielle: Well, exactly. And either because…
Chris: Maybe you guys can get that.
Danielle: We’d love to talk to Bill O’Reilly. I don’t know if he’ll answer our calls, though. But, yeah, that’s the idea though, to get people that are in a prominent place in our society and that have a Catholic background or can speak of their Catholic faith in a respectful way and they can acknowledge the debt that they owe their faith, even if they’re not fully embracing it right now.
Chris: I like that idea of a segment, that’s really awesome. Anybody coming up in the future months that we might be watching for?
Danielle: Well, we’re working on getting a few different people. We’ve…we’re trying to get people like Harry Connick, Jr., and other sports stars and I don’t know if you’ve…if you’re familiar with the sports videos which are Champions of Faith? They’re all kinds of…
Chris: Absolutely.
Danielle: Right. They’re all kinds of great role models in the sports world and we’re looking ahead to talk to some of the Catholic Olympians as well, so yeah, we’ve got a lot in the works.
Chris: And speaking of having a lot in the works, we’re going to take just a short break here to hear from our sponsor and we will be back in just in minute to talk more with Danielle Bean about Faith and Family magazine, Faith and Family Live, this is the Catholic Spotlight.
(Commercial break)
Chris: And we’re back on the Catholic Spotlight with Danielle Bean, senior editor of Faith and Family magazine as well as faithandfamilylive.com.
Now another thing you wanted to talk about is the annual Catholic Identity College Guide.
Danielle: That’s right.
Chris: Tell me about it.
Danielle: Well, that’s a real…it’s getting to be a real popular feature in…
Chris: I can imagine….why?
Danielle: Yeah. Once a year we survey Catholic colleges to find out their Catholic identity and we ask them different questions about their institution and about their campus culture, things about daily mass is available or what kinds of clubs they allow, how their dorms are set up and what their health services is like and we ask them to answer just yes or no, a list of different questions which you can see in the magazine in our September-October issue, and then we do a write up to give people an idea of what kinds of institutions these Catholic colleges are and how seriously they do take their Catholic identity.
Chris: Now do you do anything outside of the Catholic college world or is it pretty much just Catholic colleges?
Danielle: We focus on Catholic colleges, yeah, because we’re most concerned with those who identify themselves as Catholic and whether or not they’re following up with that, with their actions.
Chris: Because, you know, personally, I went to a public university.
Danielle: Um-huh.
Chris: And I think that there would be some benefit to having more information about Newman Centers and things like that and the Catholic identity and Catholic involvement on non-Catholic campuses as well.
Danielle: Um-huh. I think that might be something interesting to look at in the future.
Chris: It would probably be a pretty big project though.
Danielle: Right, it could be but for now we’ve been focusing on Catholic colleges and we’ve gotten a real good response from readers and from the colleges themselves that they start to realize that these are the kind of things people are interested in knowing about, whether or not your faculty is Catholic and whether or not they take an oath of fidelity to the church and what kinds of campus groups your college is sponsoring and whether or not you have co-ed dorms.
These are the kind of things that perspective students and parents want to know about before they’ll shell out big bucks to send their kids to a Catholic college.
Chris: Yeah, because if you’re not doing that kind of stuff, you might as well just go to the secular…
Danielle: Right.
Danielle: In some ways it’s even more harmful if you’ve got the label of Catholic and you’re doing these secular things.
Chris: Now, do you find that pretty much all the Catholic universities are cooperative in sending back the information or do you…
Danielle: Well, they’re getting more so. Yeah, they’re starting to take it more seriously and they’re starting to realize that people care about these issues and that this is an opportunity for them to get some good publicity among people who take their faith seriously.
Chris: That’s very interesting. Now do you think that in some way you might be influencing some of the colleges to adhere to their Catholic faith and roots a little better?
Danielle: Well, yeah…
Chris: By putting a spotlight on this?
Danielle: Yeah, I think that is the case. Just this morning I talked with Tom Hoops who’s our editorial director, one of them, he and his wife, April, together are editorial directors and he did mention that schools are starting to respond in way that they’re taking these things more seriously and they’re starting to realize people actually care about these kinds of things and we better have the right answer to answer on this survey.
Chris: And if we don’t, maybe we better reevaluate why?
Danielle: Exactly.
Chris: Well, that’s awesome, that you’ve got some really good cultural influence going on in the college arena. We really need to hold our colleges accountable to passing on the faith faithfully.
Danielle: That’s right, yeah. And it’s one of the ways that, you know, we try to…some people think of us as a magazine that sort of, you know, parenting of toddlers or babies or that kind of thing but we really strive to be serving the needs of families throughout their different age groups and all the way up through the teen and the college years.
Chris: Now, you’re next talking point. I just love this. Usually I have no idea what to talk about with….
Danielle: So this is helpful? Good.
Chris: Kind of just whatever I feel like at the time here. You have a super saint costume section.
Danielle: Right.
Chris: So what kind of saint costumes are you highlighting for Halloween?
Danielle; Um-huh.
Chris: And I assume that you’re targeting this at people who actually celebrate Halloween?
Danielle: Yes. Well, you know, we like to…
Chris: Which most of us do, I think.
Danielle: Exactly. I mean, I think it’s really…we look for a balance here and a lot of people, a lot of Catholic families celebrate Halloween, celebrate All Saints Day and a lot do both so in the costumes that we featured, we featured different saints, and this is by Suzie Lloyd, by the way, the author of “Please don’t Drink the Holy Water.”
She’s one of our senior writers and she highlighted different costumes that kids like to be year after year, different saints that they can portray but also ways that these kinds of costumes can be cropped over into sort of secular theme and you’re going to use them for Halloween and you don’t necessarily want your kids to be the holy rollers on the block or the weirdoes going trick or treating as saints…
Chris: So Saint Francis becomes a Jedi?
Danielle: That could work, but there are lots of princess saints and, you know, Indian saints or different soldiers and that kind of thing or she also suggests doing patron saints, like Saint Florian is the patron saint of firefighters if your little guy wants to dress up like a firefighter then he can go for it and he go trick or treating and you can also go to the All Saints party, so it’s really…she has a good balance in her article, not only of the different kinds of saint costumes and the practical ideas for making the costumes but also for party ideas and getting kids excited about this.
Chris: That sounds awesome. You know, we have, for many years, at least in our household, we usually attend some kind of an All Saints Day party as well as participating in trick or treating, although I think last year we definitely did curtail that significantly just because of the absolute demonic children that were coming to our door the year before.
Danielle: Oh, joy. You know, that’s why a lot of families will just opt for an All Saints party as opposed to trick or treating or doing any of kind of Halloween stuff because it does tend to, depending on your neighborhood or what kinds of things go on in your area, some of it does tend toward really…it’s not demonic, but just plain gross or gruesome kinds of Halloween costumes and celebrations.
Chris: Yeah. I think when our neighbor came out in a wagon that was built as a casket in unrecognizable zombie outfit, we just said, “That’s it, no more.”
Danielle: That’s enough of that.
Chris: So onto the beyond peanut butter and jelly recipe roundup and this is an area where I personally would really benefit from some guidance, you know?
Peanut butter and jelly isn’t the big thing in our house but we certainly have the standby reliables that we seem to go back to every two or three days with the kids that we know they’ll eat and…
Danielle: Right.
Chris: …so menu variety does lack a little bit here, although I have the additional challenge in my household of a small child with Diabetes…
Danielle: Um-huh.
Chris: …which limits anything with carbs and then another child who has Celiac disease which limits anything with wheat, which is like almost everything.
Danielle: Um-huh. Wow, that is a challenge.
Chris: Some days I feel like a short order cook because I’ve got to have a different meal for one and then a different meal for another…
Danielle: Um-huh.
Chris: …and then the other kids don’t want to eat what the other two have to eat and…
Danielle: So even parents without kids who have special needs sometimes feel like a short order cook just because they’re catering to all the different preferences among their kids so it can make a big difference to have food that your family actually you know will enjoy and that you can feel good about serving them because you know it’s nutritious so this section that you’re talking about, the beyond peanut butter and jelly, that article is our “What’s Cooking” feature in our September-October issue and that’s a feature that we have in each issue that focuses on food and some sort of a theme related to food in a way that pertains to families, whether it features a party or a celebration of a certain kind or a different kind of cooking or that kind of thing.
This time we were looking at packing school lunches and this particular article was written by Carman Stacer who’s a popular Catholic mom blogger and also she wrote a different article for us on fitness and nutrition, she herself has lost over 80 pounds, so she’s…
Chris: Wow.
Danielle: Yeah, she’s very nutrition conscious and very health conscious so kind of a nice balance.
She’s also a mother of six kids who packs school lunches for them every day so she’s got a lot of experience she brought to this article and a lot of practical recipes and really neat ideas for packing school lunches that your kids will actually eat, so that kind of feature is what we try to focus on in “What’s Cooking,” is healthy recipes and recipes are going to actually use and is going to be helping them in their everyday lives.
Chris: I understand, and I think Lisa Hindy also suggests there’s another site, Dying without Wine, that Lisa Hindy over at catholicmom.com often refers to.
Danielle: Oh, really? I’m not familiar with that one.
Chris: Oh, well, you’ll have to go to catholicmom.com and check it out.
Danielle: I guess so.
Chris: Although I think that that is a subscription service, so…
Danielle: Um-huh.
Chris: …I’m not quite there yet. Now you wanted to talk also about the entertainment section.
Danielle: That’s right. We have an entertainment section in each issue where our senior writers review up and coming products or books or services that are of interest.
Chris: I love reviews.
Danielle: Yes, well, it’s sort of what you do here on the Catholic Spotlight. Looking for…
Chris: As well as our new blogger review program…
Danielle: Exactly.
Chris: …where we’ve got bloggers all over the Internet or all over the Catholic Internet who are now doing product reviews for us on a regular basis.
Danielle: Um-huh. Well, sometimes, you know, it’s hard to keep up with everything that’s brand new and everything that’s coming out and not necessarily everything that’s stamped with the label Catholic but certainly all of that, but then some things that just might be of interest to people living Catholic family lives and things that are just plain enjoyable for kids or grownups of all ages and so we find a lot of interesting things there.
We have senior writers that write each section and it’s broken up by age group, so we’ll have little kids books and products and then big kids, teens, and then grownups, so we have six. We’ll review music or, you know, latest movies or DVDs and even classic movies or DVDs as well as books and products and food and gifts and it’s just a real nice roundup for people.
A lot of people use it as a gift guide when they’re looking to give presents to godchildren or other family members and certainly around Christmas time and different holidays, it really comes in handy to have this nice roundup of interesting, new and something for Catholics.
Chris: Absolutely, and like I said, I always enjoy finding out about what’s new in the Catholic world.
Danielle: Um-huh.
Chris: In terms of books and gifts and things just because, well, you know, that excitement about new stuff like that is really what got me into the industry I’m in.
Danielle: Right.
Chris: So moving onto kids book feature.
Danielle: Right. In each of our issues we have a children’s book that we feature that has beautiful pictures and we’ll feature the pictures on our pages but also is well written as well as well illustrated.
We feature both religiously themed and secular books and it’s just kind of…it’s a nice resource for parents to have to encourage them to read with their children and share good literature with their kids and so we’ll try to highlight a book or a collection of books that maybe not everybody knows about and sometimes we do classic books but we’ll also do new books or little gems that you might not have heard about and highlight them here in this section and we look for an author to write the piece that has a personal connection with the book and a family experience with the book.
I think most parents can relate to the idea that certain books with your kids become old favorites and familiar friends and we like to share that kind of experience with our readers.
Chris: And then you also have a health feature…
Danielle: Right.
Chris: …that talks about all sorts of interesting things.
Danielle: Yeah, health is something that readers have told us they’re interested in and we’re trying to get more of it in our pages.
Chris: I think everybody’s interested in health to some extent, right?
Danielle: Right.
Chris: Because you’ve got to take care of your body and if your body’s a temple of the Lord then all the more reason to take care of it.
Danielle: Exactly. Right. That’s very true. This particular issue, September-October, 2008, our latest issue, we have a feature article on depression and it’s written by Dr. Lisa Kolicky, who is a Catholic psychologist and she offered some help for people to diagnose depression, figure out whether or not they might be depressed, recognize the signs of depression, perhaps not in themselves but in their loved ones and she offers great resources for people to get the help that they need, both in the form of books and websites and how to navigate making your appointment with the doctor’s office and it’s just nice to have a Catholic perspective on something that touches so many people’s lives.
Chris: Now what other kinds of articles do you typically have in your health section?
Danielle: Well, this is actually…it’s actually a feature that we’ll do different kinds of adult relationships in that feature so in the future, we’re looking to have things about weight loss, about fitness and exercise and nutrition, so those are the types of issues that we’re hoping to cover in the health field in the future.
Chris: Well, I’m sure my wife will want talk to you then, since that’s kind of her specialty.
Danielle: Oh, okay. Great.
Chris: Well, I think we’ve made it through all the main talking points that you wanted to cover today, unless there is something else that you wanted to let our listeners know about, just what an awesome resource Faith and Family magazine is.
Danielle: I just want to make sure that, you know, some of the articles that we’ve highlighted here are practical and just real basic day to day kind of support but we also have articles on spirituality and we have sections on prayer and spiritual directions and it…you know, we look to be an all-encompassing approach to Catholic family life, so we don’t neglect the spiritual end. We try to have not only the practical but also spiritual and inspirational materials as well.
Chris: Alright. Well, Danielle, it has been an awesome pleasure having you on the show again.
I really appreciate you taking the time to come over and talk about your passion, that is Faith and Family magazine and faithandfamilylive.com.
Danielle: Thank you for having me, Chris. It’s been a pleasure.
Chris; Oh, well, it’s always fun so if there’s nothing else then I will say goodbye and God bless.
Danielle: God bless you too.
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Transcript of Interview with Danielle Bean about Faith and Family Magazine. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com
Listen Now to the audio version of the show.
Faith and Family Magazine is available at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-gifts/2005031/Faith-Family-Magazine-1-Year-Subscription/
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