Back in 2012, I wanted to help my friend, fiddler Becky Buller, promote her solo career. I had become aware of Fiddler magazine about a year earlier, grabbing a copy from the rack at Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan. I emailed the editor Mary Larsen if she would be interested in an article on Becky, along with inlcuding my writing resume. Mary got back to me with a request, and it was the start of a decade-long positive relationship with the publication.
I was extremely pleased that the Becky Buller article became the cover story for that issue, and had proceeded to provide an article nearly every quarterly issue since then. While primarily interviewing bluegrass fiddlers, I also produced articles on klezmer, Quebecois, and country music fiddlers, as well as numerous album reviews and survey articles on teaching, instruments, and even handling COVID.
Back in 2022, Mary decided to retire from the editor/publisher end of the publication, and the magazine was purchased by a freelance writer named Narielle Living. The contributing writers of Fiddler were happy that the magazine would continue. Narielle had a strong publishing background, and made the overall look of the magazine receive a more modern appearance. She also had a good business sense when it came to magazine publishing. Unfortunately, Fiddler was meeting the same fate as many other print publications, in that, paper costs and postage were making boutique magazines non profitable, so the decision was made to go online only in 2023.
For some more mainstream publications with a wider scope of readers, online-only magazines can prove survivable, maybe even decently profitable. However, Fiddler was not one of those fortunate ones. The majority readership of Fiddler seemed to prefer print format, particularly since there was tablature for fiddle tunes printed, and it was easy to just put the magazine onto a music stand to practice. Moreover, there is something about print that makes it more comfortable and welcoming to read anywhere at any time, rather than pulling out the laptop, tablet, or iPhone.
It seemed that only one or two online issues of Fiddler were published. I continued to send in my interview and review articles to Narielle. However, by early 2024, I was not seeing any notice in my email inbox that a new issue was being uploaded online. She had updated the magazine website (www.fiddlermag.com/) with cleaner graphics, but nothing to announce the new issue date. Available merchandise consists of different stickers, but no available back issues.
I have attempted to contact Narielle at least a dozen times to get some information on the magazine’s current and future status, but have not received any reply. I have even contacted Mary to see if she has heard anything, but she gets the same non-response. A number of online chatboards dealing with the violin and fiddle have numerous postings about the magazine’s existence, and all answers lead to dead ends.
This is a sad state indeed. I can understand if there is a need to discontinue the publication for any one of a number of reasons, but not providing a statement as to its closure to the contributors and readers is not good. For me, it was an easy outlet for my freelance writing. While the pay vs. time spent interviewing and writing was not that great, it was rewarding to get to know many fiddlers in different genres, as well as keep my writing chops fresh. For readers, this was one of the truly few resources for roots-music fiddlers to learn about the many aspects of fiddling. While there are other magazines that cover roots music in general, and even one or two publications that center on the violin, none covered the subject of fiddling like Fiddler.
This may have been my last opportunity for freelance writing, in particular in the music scene. Fiddler was the perfect outlet for my writing. I will have to re-evaluate my time and commitment to part-time writing, if I should decide to continue. Freelance writing is truly a dog-eat-dog world. Moreover, with print magazines disappearing one by one, online publishing does not provide a steady income, if any income at all. Taking a look at the writing of some online publications, the editorial work is horrendous, and articles look like they were written by a 5th grader.
I so much hate to see Fiddler go, and I keep hoping and praying that this hiatus is temporary, and someone will see how valuable this publication has been to so many fiddlers, both beginners and old-timers, and help to bring it back to life.
Chew on it and comment.
Luegra 