• October 2007

Portland Magazine Wins 8 National Prizes at the 2007 American Graphic Design Awards

New York—Portland Magazine captures eight prizes at the prestigious national American Graphic Design Awards for design excellence conducted in New York by Graphic Design USA magazine and sponsored by Adobe Systems Incorporated. It was an “amazing performance” for the 22-year-old Maine magazine, according to Graphic Design USA editor Gordon Kaye.

The American Graphic Design Awards is a nationwide juried competition from one of the most respected design industry resources. The Awards have been presented for over three decades, and the judges are composed of industry leaders in all aspects of graphic design.

Graphic Design USA’s prize announcement of the awards, including a listing of the stories, covers, and issues that received the honors:

Congratulations!

You have been selected as a winner in the 2007 American Graphic Design Awards.

Graphic Design USA has been presenting this popular competition, open to all segments of the creative community, for more than three decades. For the second straight year, the exclusive corporate sponsor is Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Selected from a remarkable 10,000+ entries nationwide, these pieces–and their creators–represent the best and brightest in graphic design. An Awards Certificate for each winning entry is enclosed and, again, congratulations!

Amazing performance...

Portland Magazine, February/March 2007–Publication Design
Portland Magazine, December 2006 Magazine–Cover Design
Portland Magazine, Winterguide 2007–Cover Design
Portland Magazine, “Who Is That Guy?” [10 Most Intriguing, November 2006]–Editorial Design
Portland Magazine, “Vanishing Point” [Winterguide 2007]–Editorial Design
Portland Magazine, “Tall Order” [Winterguide 2007]–Editorial Design
Portland Magazine, “Tasty Maine” [December 2006]–Editorial Design
Portland Magazine, “How Clean Is Portland Harbor?” [December 2006]–Editorial Design

Gordon Kaye–Editor, Graphic Design USA Rachel Goldberg–Awards Director

“This is a great honor for us, but especially great news for our readers, advertisers, and all our supporters,” says Robert
Witkowski, Design Director.

Celebrating 22 years in publication, Portland Magazine has also won five national graphic-design awards in the last three years for front cover art direction at the annual Maggie Zine Awards sponsored by NewsStand Resource Magazine of Greensboro, North Carolina, including First Prize and Best in Show.

The full list of award winners, including color coverage of Portland Magazine for Publication Design, selected from among over 10,000 entrants nationwide, will be published in the December 2007 GDUSA Design Annual.

•March 2007

Portland Magazine wins national cover award for the third time!

Congratulations. You've done it again! Your cover, Portland Magazine, February/March 2006, placed 1st in Category 3 - Circulation 10,000 to 74,999,in the 2006 NewsStand Resource cover contest. Your winning cover is featured in the spring 2007 issue of NewsStand Resource which will be distributed at the annual MPA Retail Conference in early March.

In addition, your winning cover (along with all winning covers placing 1,2 or 3 in all categories) is entered into the Readers' Choice Cover Contest (winners to be announced in April 2007). The top three covers will befeatured in the Summer 2007 issue of NewsStand Resource which will be distributed at the annual PBAA Convention in late June.

A formal press release will go out to the industry early next week. We will
mail your plaque and certificate with a copy of the spring issue shortly.

Sincerely,

Frances Becker
Publisher
NewsStand Resource

• March 2007

Multiple fiction contributor John Michael Cummings, who published his first short story with Portland Magazine in 1991, is getting his debut novel published by Penguin in early 2008. The House of My Father is a modern-day, coming-of-age literary novel about a troubled boy who finds a father figure in the abolitionist John Brown. For more info about the author, visit www.johnmichaelcummings.com.

• March 2007

Account Executive and writer Colin S. Sargent has recently been accepted into the Doctor of Philosophy in Transnational and Comparative History program at Northeastern University. Colin will pursue his ambition to become a university professor starting in Boston this fall.

• March 2007

Portland Magazine is proud announce the promotion of Anna J. Nelson to Advertising Director.

A 2004 graduate of the University of Maine, Orono, with a degree in Parks Recreation and Tourism, Nelson will assume duties as an account executive for the magazine’s Maine Unique Homes premium real estate section, the New England Homes and Living real estate section, as well as for the display advertising section. She comes to Portland Magazine from the position of Sales Manager at Portland’s DoubleTree Hotel.

Nelson also served as a park ranger at Acadia National Park for seven summers. While at UMaine, she competed for two years on the university Woodsmen Team, was a university tour guide, and environmental interpreter.

• December 15, 2006 - Special Announcement

Beginning with our 2007 Home & Gardens issue this February, we’re proud to announce that our press run is increasing to 25,000 copies printed. Making us by a dramatic margin the largest regional magazine ever published in Southern Maine.

“It’s exciting for all of us to reach such a landmark distinction,” says publisher Colin Sargent.

Award-winning Portland Monthly Magazine, national winner two years running at the Maggie Zine awards competition from NewsStand Resource, celebrates 21 years of bringing you the best of Maine.

• November 16, 2006

Portland Monthly Magazine is proud to welcome Frank B. Stetson and Melissa K. Brenner to our advertising sales staff.

Stetson, a 1983 graduate of the University of Maine, Orono, with a degree in Journalism, joins us as senior advertising executive for the magazine’s display advertising and New England Homes and Living sections. Previous sales achievements include Adelphia Media Services where he was senior account executive, Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, WGME-TV, and Portland Radio Group. Interests include instructing at Dale Carnegie and broadcasting play-by-play for the Lewiston Maine-iacs hockey team.

Brenner is a 2001 graduate in Communication from the University of Southern Maine. She joins Portland Magazine as an advertising executive. Previously she was Territory Manager for Organon Pharmaceuticals, where she was twice ranked number one for regional market share; and WGME-TV, where she was an advertising Account Executive. Other accomplishments include winning the Miss Maine USA scholarship in 2001.

• August 15, 2006

Portland Magazine is proud to welcome Anna J. Nelson of Portland to our advertising sales staff.

A 2004 graduate of the University of Maine, Orono, with a degree in Parks Recreation and Tourism, Nelson will assume duties as an account executive for the magazine’s Maine Unique Homes premium real estate section, the New England Homes and Living real estate section, as well as for the display advertising section. She comes to Portland Magazine from the position of Sales Manager at Portland’s DoubleTree Hotel.

Nelson also served as a park ranger at Acadia National Park for seven summers. While at UMaine, she competed for two years on the university Woodsmen Team, was a university tour guide, and environmental interpreter.

• Portland Magazine Editor Colin Sargent is the 2005 winner of 2nd Place, Third Annual Maine Screenwriting Competition, for his full length feature screenplay Montebello Ice. A panel of judges evaluated all the screenplays and noted the high caliber of this year's entries. The winners were announced at the screenwriting seminar at the Celebration of Maine Filmakers' program in Waterville as part of the Maine International Film Festival.

• Portland Magazine Grand Prize Winner at the Maggie Zine Awards
Portland Magazine is the winner of both Best Cover and Best of the Show awards at the 2004 Maggie Zine Cover Award Competition, conducted in Greensboro, North Carolina, by NewsStand Resource. The winning cover, The Lure of Maine: Summerguide 2004, art directed by Jesse Stenbak, Danny Louten, and Miroslaw Jurek, features an image of Portland Head Light by William H. Johnson in the background and a lobster feast in the foreground, with lobsters, mussels, and corn on the cob. The cover took first place nationally in the City, Regional, and Special magazine category for achievement in art direction and newsstand appeal, and then as a capping honor was chosen to be the Grand Prize Winner as Best of the Show. Results of the competition will appear in the Spring 2005 edition of NewsStand Resource.

"We had 500 entrants in the cover competition, including National Geographic, U.S. News & World Report, Scientific American, Nickelodeon Magazine, Pittsburgh Magazine, and on and on, and out of all of them Portland Magazine had the best cover," says Frances Becker Cliff, publisher of NewsStand Resource, the nation's leading trade magazine for single-copy newsstand sales. "We love it. It's just Maine, you know? It says Maine. There it is."

• The July 28th Issue of mediabistro.com praises Portland Magazine for "high caliber fiction... in the vein of Pulitzer Prize winner Lewis Simpson, Frederick Barthelme, and Barbara Lefcowitz... in addition to the standard city-mag fare... indeed the magazine reaches beyond the usual..." For more information visit www.mediabistro.com

• Aug - 2005 - Portland Magazine webmaster and music columnist Jason Hjort is working on a compilation of local electronica artists for his record label brick.city.media. The compilation will feature original tracks from six Portland area electronica producers and is due out in late September. For more info visit www.brickcitymedia.com

• Steve Lutrell will be reading his original poetry at the Rockland Public Library on Thursday November 10th at 8pm as part of a reading series hosted by Steve Donoso. For more info call 207-594-0310. It's a busy two months for Mr. Lutrell as he will also be reading the Portland Public Library November 23rd from 12-1pm and The Falmouth Public Library October 18th from 7-8pm.

• Portland Magazine graphic designer Danny Louten has posted new works on his website including a new three minute film called "Slow Grain." For more info visit www.dannnylouten.com

• Respected national magazine American Art Review has reprinted "Rockwell Kent: Stubborn Beauty" by Stephen May in their June 2005 issue. The article originally appeared in the February/March 2005 issue of Portland Magazine.

• Bowdoin graduate Jason Brown was a Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford, and now teaches in the MFA program at the University of Arizona. His first book of stories, Driving the Heart and Other Stories, was published by W. W. Norton in 1999. His new collection, Why The Devil Chose New England For His Work (W. W. Norton, Fall 2006) includes stories that have appeared in the Atlantic, Harper’s, and elsewhere. Brown interned at Portland Magazine in 1989.