From: Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 15:31:02 -0500 Subject: UT Publication NOT "Folding" For Immediate Release Contact: Dina and Whitney Hannah at 486-6473 or Kathy Worthington at 288-9294 March 1995 Four-Year-Old Utah Publication for Womyn Changing Hands and Undergoing Some Changes Salt Lake City - A four-year-old publication targeting Utah lesbians and gays, the Womyn's Community News, changed hands in March and is undergoing some changes, including a name change. The first issue of the Labrys, edited by Salt Lakers Dina and Whitney Hannah, is due to be in the homes of subscribers - and available in a number of gay and lesbians community outlets - by April 1. The changes at this popular gay (meaning for the homosexual, bisexual and transgendered community) publication are due to the fact that Kathy Worthington and Sara Hamblin, editors of the WCN for the past two years, are going to be leaving Utah later this year and they wanted to make sure there would continue to be a publication to serve the needs and tastes of a majority of Utah lesbians. Once a few issues of the Labrys have reached readers, Worthington and Hamblin say they'll feel they can leave the state knowing the work they've been doing will continue. Worthington founded the Womyn's Community News in early 1991 to fill a need she believed existed for a central source of information for Utah lesbians, in a "tasteful" format that didn't include overtly sexual photos, stories or advertising. Worthington says she considered the WCN her "gift to the community," and she edited and published it for four years. Hamblin, Worthington's partner of 2 1/2 years, joined the staff as assistant editor in mid 1992. A March 11 article in the Salt Lake Tribune prompted Worthington to issue a statement that the change of hands at the publication definitely doesn't mean the WCN is folding. The WCN has been a success in every way she ever expected it to be, she says, exceeding all she ever envisioned in size, distribution and quality. "I started this thing as a little newsletter, thinking it would six or eight pages long. Even the first issue was twelve pages long and it hasn't been less than 30 pages long for the last couple of years. That's why we changed the name to Womyn's Community News, it was just too long to be called a newsletter anymore." Worthington said. "And we've had over 400 subscribers for more than a year, most of them in Utah, but some of them as far away as Connecticut, Georgia and Texas." Worthington and Hamblin are leaving Utah this year because Hamblin is studying to be a Court Reporter and will need to leave Utah for more schooling and for some on-the-job training. They've known for a year and a half that they would eventually have to leave the state. "We knew that the minute the word got out that we were leaving town, many womyn in the community would panic, thinking they would no longer have a publication serving their needs." Worthington said. "We've gotten comments, phone calls and letters from a lot of our subscribers and readers expressing their fears about us leaving, but we tell them we'll be around for a few more months, until we're sure the Labrys is up and running smoothly, and that seems to satisfy most of them." Worthington says that the name change was at her insistence, because she wanted it to be clear that the new editors were in charge and could make any changes they wanted to. "I didn't want our readers calling either us or the new editors to say they aren't doing it 'the way Kathy and Sara did.' The publication is no longer ours, and I want the Hannahs to feel they can change it any way they want to and not have to worry about what Sara and I think, only about what their readers think." "Basically, however, it will be the same publication with the same goals: to bring news and information to Utah womyn and men who want their community publication informative and interesting without any of the sex-oriented stuff that many gay publications contain."