On my first day at Richmond magazine, during a tour of the office, Production and Operations Manager Scott Bunce picked up a couple copies of the January 2022 issue and commented that he’s been getting requests for it all year. Later that day, I found out why.
In that issue, Dale Brumfield shared for the first time the extraordinary story of Calvin Arey, the last surviving plaintiff in the landmark Landman v. Royster case. The 1971 lawsuit, which exposed and ended the routine abuse administered in Virginia’s prisons, changed the lives of inmates across the country. The story deeply touched readers — and astonished Arey’s neighbors in Boston, who had no idea of the retired real estate agent’s past struggles or his role in the groundbreaking case.
Just as the repercussions of the original case reverberated across the country, the article is inspiring change across Virginia. As Brumfield reports in his follow-up piece, “Ripples” (Page 72), Arey has been corresponding with inmates in several commonwealth prisons and helping them create small lending libraries of books chosen to “engender feelings of hope.” Arey told Brumfield, “You throw a story out there hoping it can make a difference today.”
That sentiment — and the fact that we’re running the story at all — is one reason I am delighted to join the team at Richmond magazine. I’ve worked in publishing for a long time, and what has always made it satisfying was the feeling that I was making a difference to my readers and my community. My specialty is hobby and lifestyle magazines, so the difference I make tends to be small — providing great instructions for a DIY project, profiling an up-and-coming artist, spotlighting a neat place to go — but I like knowing that I helped someone have a better day.
At Richmond magazine, I have the opportunity to make more of an impact. We’ll help you win date night by pairing 25 new(ish) dining destinations (Page 84) with tickets to see a tribute band (Page 76) — but we also provide a forum for calling for political reform (Page 36). We cover holiday music and light shows (Page 44), as well as the lasting effects of trauma on children (Page 60). In other words, we’ll help you have a better day today and work toward making the world a better place tomorrow. So let me know what you’d like to see in the magazine next year — I am open to intriguing ideas that make a difference, large or small, to the Richmond region.
