Latingirl Magazine
70 Hudson St.
5th Floor
Hoboken, NJ 07030-0625
201/876-9600
http://www.latingirlmag.com
Latingirl targets 12- to 19-year-old Hispanic girls with a bimonthly publication carrying a mix of typical teen magazine articles and features geared to their heritage. The
magazine launched in January 1999; it now has a circulation of more than 120,000. Sales are a mix of subscription and newsstand (it's distributed in national outlets such as
Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven), but it's also directly given away by Scholastic to high school students. Editor-in-chief Lu Herrera anticipates it will be expanded
next year to a 10-time per year publication schedule.
Content/Contacts
The mission of Latingirl is the "three Es," Herrera says - "to empower, to enlighten and to entertain our readers." She sees the magazine's readers tugged in three different
directions, between being teenagers, being Latino and life in America.
The magazine includes departments on beauty ("Hermosura"), health, relationships, fashion and entertainment. Two sections, Passages and Mi Barrio ("My Neighborhood"), address
topics from a Hispanic point of view. In the current issue, for instance, there is a feature discussing the pros and cons of Latina sororities for college-bound readers. It also
takes on more controversial subjects such as teen pregnancy and racism, both in stories and in a full-page comic strip.
"In the Zone," the department for music, movie and product reviews, concentrates on mainstream topics with an Hispanic accent, such as interviews with Latin pop bands and
Latino actors, but it also echoes the subjects found in teen magazines (back-to-school trends, books and high-tech gadgets for teens, educational Web sites with a high fun
quotient).
Stories should be pitched to Jeanette Del Valle, senior editor, preferably by email, [email protected].
Pitch Tips
Herrera finds story ideas in letters from the magazine's readers, when they ask why something wasn't included in an article or suggesting another way to look at a topic. "I
really like it when Jeanette shows me a query letter and it's something that we didn't think of or it's something we thought of but this is a new twist," Herrera says. The
magazine regularly invites teens to write about themselves and their lives, and it uses guest authors or excerpts books, articles and poetry. It also runs a questionnaire on a
teen-oriented topic - this month it's on peer pressure - with results in an upcoming issue, that could serve as a source for story concepts.
One pet peeve for the editorial staff is a story idea that doesn't provide the Latino angle. "Sometimes they forget this is for the Latina teen," she says, "and yes, the reader
is a teenager...We're looking for something they wouldn't get from another magazine."
Herrera and her staff also don't like being pestered about an idea. When a pitch comes in, they send back their guidelines, which provide specific time frames for response. "We
ask them to give us a few weeks to go through it," she says. The guidelines state that follow-up calls are not necessary, so "one of the things we can do without is multiple
emails."
Comments
Latingirl is an English-language magazine that uses the Spanish phrase where it is idiomatically appropriate. Some of the ads are in Spanish or a mix of both languages. Letters
from girls reading the magazine make it clear that many may be of Hispanic origin, but English is their first (perhaps only) language. These readers are or aspire to be mainstream
teenagers in most ways - but they also cherish the opportunity to be bicultural.