- PITTSFIELD -- A magazine that seeks to highlight the
county's lifestyle and culture will make its debut on
newsstands this winter.
Berkshire Living will showcase the area's cuisine,
personalities, attractions, homes and outdoors, said its
founder and publisher, Michael Zivyak of Hillsdale, N.Y.
"Our aim is to capture and celebrate the landscape and
lifestyle that makes the Berkshires such an attractive place
to live and visit," Zivyak said in a prepared announcement.
Eight issues of Berkshire Living are planned the first
year, after which the magazine will publish nine issues per
year.
Eagle critic named editor
Seth Rogovoy, a longtime Berkshire Eagle freelance pop
music critic and feature writer, has been named editor in
chief of the new regional magazine.
"Seth's broad experience in cultural journalism as well as
his deep knowledge of the Berkshires from north to south made
him the perfect choice to help shape the vision and content of
the magazine," said Zivyak, who was most recently the
associate publisher of Spin, a national magazine that covers
popular music and culture.
Zivyak and Rogovoy are assembling a staff that will
eventually number about 10. The team already includes creative
director Laura Morris, an award-winning, co-founder and former
creative director of the new-economy magazine Business 2.0,
and circulation director Stephanie Skinner, a co-founder of
Skinner-James Communications.
They plan to open an office in downtown Great Barrington
and to begin production work in September on the magazine's
first issue.
In a telephone interview last week, Zivyak said the
magazine's first press run will be 25,000. He declined to
discuss the financing of the venture, saying only that a
"sizable" investment is involved.
Plans call for selling Berkshire Living at a newsstand
price of $3.99; annual subscriptions will be in the $25 range,
said Zivyak. It has not yet been decided who will print the
magazine.
"We're still in negotiations on that," he said.
Zivyak said he is working with "high-end resorts and inns"
for in-room distribution.
Other regional publications and cultural venues are being
approached with an eye toward securing additional avenues of
distribution for the magazine.
"Tourists, weekenders and active, devoted residents" are
Berkshire Living's target audience, said Zivyak.
The magazine also will have a Web site: http://www.berkshirelivingmag.com/.
Readers of the magazine can expect to find articles and
photos that chronicle "all our cultural riches," Rogovoy said
in a telephone interview.
Focus on towns, people
"We'll also have lively coverage of the food and dining
scene, of the real estate market, of the great outdoors and
recreation. ... There also will probably be a focus on
different towns -- what it's like to live in them -- and
personality profiles of interesting people in the Berkshires,"
he said.
An entertainment calendar, shopping guides and coverage of
the county's lodging industry, retail sector and widening art
gallery scene also will be featured, Rogovoy said.
A member of the team that launched Business 2.0, where as
advertising director he oversaw $50 million in annual
advertising revenues, Zivyak has been spending time in the
Berkshires since childhood; his family has a weekend home in
Otis.
After becoming a weekender himself in 1995 with the
purchase of a house just over the Massachusetts border in
Hillsdale, N.Y., Zivyak, a former luxury-goods sales manager
for Money magazine and sales representative for Conde Nast's
Glamour, began brainstorming a plan that would relocate him
from New York City to the Berkshires.
"Comparable regions around the country, like Santa Barbara,
Aspen and the Adirondacks, all have colorful, glossy magazines
that present those areas in a lively, sophisticated fashion
befitting their region," Zivyak said. "It's time the
Berkshires had one, too."
Rogovoy, who lives in Great Barrington with his wife and
two children, has been The Eagle's primary pop music critic
for 16 years. He will continue to submit occasional articles
and reviews to The Eagle for the pop music scene. A team of
freelance writers will preview and review pop music events in
the region for the newspaper.
No successor has yet been named for Rogovoy, who also will
continue as one of The Eagle's rotating "Periodicals"
columnists.
Rogovoy also will continue contributing to WAMC Northeast
Public Radio's "Roundtable" program with his weekly "Rogovoy
Report," offering his cultural reviews and recommendations on
Friday mornings at 10:05.
A New York native who has spent more than half his life in
the Berkshires, Rogovoy first came to the region as a summer
camper and then as a kitchen worker at Camp Emerson in
Hinsdale in the 1970s.
"I treasure the experiences I've been afforded writing for
The Eagle these past 18 years, but I am incredibly excited
about the chance to start something new and different, and to
apply the knowledge and insight I've gained over the years to
a broader vision of the Berkshires," said Rogovoy, a Williams
College graduate who started at The Eagle in 1986 as assistant
editor and feature writer for Berkshires Week magazine.
He lived in the Northern Berkshire region for 20 years
before moving to South County in 2001.
"I see this magazine as 'curating' the Berkshires,
gathering and presenting what makes this such an attractive
place to live and to visit," Rogovoy said. "That's what I
really look forward to, presenting [the area] in a fashion
which really does it justice in terms of design and
presentation in a magazine that will be as stylish, colorful,
sophisticated and intelligent as the Berkshires are
themselves."
D.R. Bahlman can be reached at http://us.f607.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=dbahlman@berkshireeagle.com.
