Magazines

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Does anyone know of good fencing magazines besides American Fencing?

[D'Artagnan1673]

Fencers Quarterly

[Purple Fencer]

[quote]Originally posted by D'Artagnan1673:
<strong>Fencers Quarterly</strong><hr></blockquote>

Only if you LIKE a rant again modern fencing EVERY ISSUE.

No a good mag, IMHO.

[D'Artagnan1673]

A fair portion of it is ranting, but there still good things to read. Its mainly the editor's piste that is a rant. I like the rant since I agree with most of what Nick says, but that's me.

You can also read fascinating historical articles in those magainzes.

[Peach]

I received it free for some time and mostly couldn't make it through an entire issue. I'm not all that interested in the history of fencing, and I'm only a "veteran" in age--I haven't been fencing for that much of my life--so I've never been able to get all that worked up about what fencing useta be like or what it oughta be like.

[veeco]

To be honest, is it just me or is the American Fencing magazine not "what it used to be?"

Now every issue they are publishing a couple letters which basically go:

"Oh yeah, fencing I used to fence a long time ago, and I have just got back to the sport and I think it sucks why did they ban the fleche in sabre, that's a bad idea, and they should have more color on the uniforms, and this and that. Why I think we have not evolved in 10 years, let's do this and make foil with the same target area as sabre, blah blah blah".

I am not saying that they should deny these people's right to voice their opinion, but I'd like to hear other opinions than always the same one.

I thought that the previous issue lacked in content. This issue that just arrived is much better. I liked the pictures from JOs, and that article from Jeff Bukantz was funny. The historical article about the first president of the AFLA was cool too, though.

[achilleus]

Escrime International is a great magazine.
Much better than American Fencing.

[Peach]

You mean the FIE magazine? That's fairly mediocre--a few turgid articles badly translated into two other languages, a bunch of good pictures, not a lot of content. It's glossy, I'll say that for it.

[achilleus]

[quote]Originally posted by Peach:
<strong>You mean the FIE magazine? That's fairly mediocre--a few turgid articles badly translated into two other languages, a bunch of good pictures, not a lot of content. It's glossy, I'll say that for it.</strong><hr></blockquote>


Accurate description. But considering that all the magazines really suck, it's one of the better ones. I don't even open my American Fencing mag anymore. It's usually full of bad articles, photos that don't show fencing, and useless letters. Although, the latest was slightly better, as Veeco pointed out.

And Fencer's Quarterly is just plain laughable.

For sport fencing, if you don't read french, Escrime International is it.

[neevel]

Well, maybe Rene Roch International is a good magazine if you like two-page spreads of Rene Roch and the FIE Congress chowing down at formal dinners, or articles about Rene's highly anticipated visit to the Equatorial Guinean Fencing Federation, or how Rene Roch is going to save foil by eliminating off-target hits and starting the fencers with their back foot on the line. Even when they occasionally get an article that is actually about the fencers or fencing, it's pretty brief and shallow due to the need for space to translate everything into two other languages. Overall, I'd say it's got an even lower content-to-ink ratio than either American Fencing or Fencers' Quarterly Tirade (formerly Veteran Whiners Quarterly ). If you want to keep up with international fencing news, Hans Rupp does a much better (and more timely) job on his Fechten in Stuttgart site (you can use Babelfish or Systran if you don't read German).

American Fencing has always been wanting for decent content; letters from people wondering why action shots of the top points-list fencers at infighting distance don't look like the beginning fencers from the Hooterville Community Rec Program club are par for the course. They used to regularly have articles from Bill Gaugler arguing things like how electric sabre was going to bring a return to (what else?) early 20th century classical Italian sabre technique. In that same issue (I'm looking at it now) the first letter to the editor was a complaint about how there had been only a dozen or so articles from the past 15 years that the writer felt worth saving, and virtually nothing for non-competitive fencers. Plus la change...

The key issue with American Fencing is that it (like so much else in the USFA) is pretty much a volunteer operation so far as the writing goes. When you get someone who's willing to do a regular column and do it well (like Joe Byrnes' armory columns), that part is good. Lacking that they either have to take letters from the cranks (anyone remember that full page rant a couple of years ago from some lady who was involved in the "American School" of fencing movement lamenting how mean Georgio Santelli had been to her in the '40's and how kids in general these days are libertines with no morals ) or fill pages with NAC results.

Is anyone from the UK or Europe or elsewhere able to chime in on how their federation magazines compare to Escrime International or (if you've seen it) American Fencing?

-Dave

[veeco]

I used to receive Escrime Magazine back when I was in France. It's about the same kind of stuff than American Fencing. Maybe with a little less ranting letters, and more in the style of Escrime International, with pictures of the French Fencers going to meet Fidel Castro while on a World cup trip in Cuba.

[Catlady]

Actually, I think at least from a production and writing quality standpoint American Fencing has improved. I'm saying this while wearing my hat as a (fanfare please) communications graduate student. I have to admit that the topics haven't always been interesting, but the magazine itself appears more professional. What I was sick of was the constant deluge of articles about Iris Zimmerman before the Olympics. I've never met Iris, but I'm sure she's a lovely person. Still I was beginning to think they should have changed the name to Iris Quarterly.

Of course I may be saying this because I'm hoping to publish a bit in the magazine eventually,-- I hope , I hope (now donning freelance writer hat),-- so I can get some decent clips.

I wonder what the other "writing types", Peach, Moon? etc., think about the magazine.

I will say that the old magazine was the site of the worst book review I've ever read anywhere. I was interested in the book and I wanted to know what it was about, I really did, but I just couldn't penetrate this person's writing (no offense of course to the previous editor(s) of course). I think it makes a difference that this editor is an editor in her "real job" as well. Really considering its a volunteer effort, I don't think it's too awful. (Rant finished, removing all extraneous hats now).

[damianip]

[quote]Originally posted by Catlady:
<strong>&lt;snip!&gt;

I wonder what the other "writing types", Peach, Moon? etc., think about the magazine.

&lt;snip!&gt;</strong><hr></blockquote>

I don't know if we can trust Peach on giving us an unbiased opinion...

She's written for them.

How about it Delia? What does an insider think?

Paolo

[Peach]

It's a nice little volunteer magazine. Better written than many, and nicely laid out. These days it's fairly readable and I usually find one or two articles insteresting.

They're fairly desperate for good writing and will accept anything that's decent--of course, it's harder than most people think to write decently. It's also harder than most people realize to put even a small magazine together regularly--my sister works full-time free-lance editing a corporate health newsletter, one of those things you get once a month in your employee mailbox, and it's much smaller than American Fencing. I know the editor of American Fencing does not do it as a full-time job.

They used my little thrown-together piece without changing it and without ever actually communicating with me--Bob Block as chair of the Veterans Committee asked if anyone wanted to help him fill his space, so I did it and sent it on to him, he added a laudatory blurb, and they used it verbatim. Which produced the odd effect of having his overenthusiastic "bio" of me at the beginning and my original understated self-bio at the end, plus no refinement of the choppy flow of the piece.

In other words, they need submissions badly.

The stuff in commercial magazines results from a process in which many submissions are rejected for quality reasons and many are also rejected because they're good but they don't fit into the scope of the magazine or they just don't fit the available issues being put together. World-famous writers get their pieces rejected. And look at how wretched many commercial magazines are, after all that!

I suspect if anyone wants to write for them and has a modicum of understanding of how to prepare articles properly, you could get published easily. But do your homework--read a book on submitting before you send off a proposal. Editors are already overworked. Presented with a wrinkled sheaf of typo-riddled tangled text complete with dangling modifiers, half-deleted sentences, and inventive punctuation, they tend to emit hissing noises like a startled kitten and then scratch sand all over it with their hind paws before sending it back.

--Delia

[Morra[PrFC]]

[quote] A fair portion of it is ranting, but there still good things to read. Its mainly the editor's piste that is a rant. I like the rant since I agree with most of what Nick says, but that's me. <hr></blockquote>

Nick who?

[ 05-11-2002: Message edited by: Morra[PrFC] ]</p>

[reptile]

[quote]Originally posted by Morra[PrFC]:
<strong>

Nick who?

[ 05-11-2002: Message edited by: Morra[PrFC] ]</strong><hr></blockquote>

Nick Evangelista

[135711]

i just went through the magazine yesterday, yes it is really rantingly lovely, but i like it, i really liked it, it was totally up to my ranting speed, and especially i like all those slaps on the wrists to: directors! fencers! [bout committees -they're next] and they all deserve it every single one of them en masse, in totum, you know and i'm sitting there reading it and taking it personal and thinking 'i don't rant!' etc, but i did rant, but it was only once, and that was in direct reply to another persons rant.
the magazine is very nice, but very sterile, it should reflect the true mood of the fencer today rants and all, i feel that the fencer today doesn't care about bow ties and tuxedos, and that they care more about getting really atheletic and watching other athletes perform at top notch level, so sort of like baseball, where the umpire yells at the ref, and the fans all throw stuff, i don't see how fencing ever became so uppity, i'm all for sweaty tshirts and unprotected underarms, and we should see it, we should see the whole thing right out there right in the magazine, i mean no one eats granola bars anymore, it's totally different, the kids eat tacos and tatoos they wear nose rings, i say lets let them have it! <img src="graemlins/evil3.gif" border="0" alt="[Evil 2]" />

[Gav]

Here in Scotland I have to say that our organisations mag is much the same as AF. Cos it's volounteer no-one writes for it. The articles tend to be about the juniors - only - so the adult audience feel alienated. When i 1st got it it was pretty good. Lots of reports from tourneys and results. Good articles from 'the vaults'. Now nada and that's when you get it.

The English equivalent - 'The Sword' - is supposedly better but I don't receive it.

I think Escrime is quite reasonable despite the French bias. I've read it acouple of times and the English articles were informative and interesting.

[D'Artagnan1673]

Nose rings? Sink me if I could stand for such things! The thing that makes fencing truly great is that we aren't like baseball or football. Ours is an activity that is so beyond regular sports.

I fence because it is an art. I love the beauty of an elegant touch. Last night, I was disapointed in winning a bout. Why? There were 5 simulataneous touches. I ended up winning 10-8 but I didn't do it right. If I were fencing at peak level, I wouldn't have allowed so many touches. I would rather loose well than win poorly.

[achilleus]

Escrime International isn't a great mag on it's own. Compared to other fencing mag's, however, it is the best I've seen.

The French bias has lessened, there are reports from world cups, and actual photos of fencing action (a novelty in the AF).