March Mailbox

Voices of Experience

I just want to take a moment to offer my hearty congratulations on the first issue of the new iteration of Genii, The Conjurors’ Magazine. Looks great! Reads interesting! All my friends and favorite folks are involved, and I greatly look forward to being entertained and enlightened each month. I want to offer particular thanks to executive editor Jim Steinmeyer for his extremely kind words last month. Now I must return to my other task, because Magicana beckons….

—Richard Kaufman

Congratulations to all on a fantastic first issue! I appreciate all the thought and creativity that went into each new section, and the clarity of voice throughout. Well done! Good luck on the next, and the next, and the next.... Much love.

—Liz Kaufman

Richard and Liz: Thank you for your kind messages. We secretly suspect that it’s bad form to be publishing compliments from the previous editor and art director, but we are not-so-secretly delighted to receive your flattering “thumbs up.” That means more than you know.

History Versus Tricks

I have just subscribed to Genii in the hopes that I will find interesting articles. I am most interested in historical events. The current article that relates Jean Hugard with Al Baker has piqued my interest. I do find there are too many columns in which magicians describe new tricks. Best of luck in your new endeavor.

—John Morgan

John: We’re determined to give readers a big mix of articles. We are committed to new tricks, but we also promise that some surprising historical articles are being queued up.

What We See

Congratulations on Genii. You’ve all done a fantastic job.“What We See & What We Don’t,” Peter Lamont’s excerpt from Radical Thinking, is especially insightful about our flawed powers of observation and the concept of “Inattentional Blindness.” I experienced this first-hand in one of my shows, performing an escape show and releasing myself from several sets of handcuffs brought by the audience. One remaining handcuff was old and rusty, with a faulty mechanism. As I struggled, I inadvertently pulled hard enough on both shackles that the center chain broke. In the spotlight, I extended my arms and the audience noticed that my hands were free, but didn’t notice that the shackles were still in place. The audience was expecting an escape, and that’s what they “saw” in their mind.

—Thomas Solomon

I just bought the February issue of Genii and I am loving it! It is the first issue in a while that I am actually reading from cover to cover. I love the formatting, the content, the classy logo, and the writing. I even ordered Peter Lamont’s Radical Thinking just because I enjoyed your excerpt from the book. Keep up the great work.

—Peter Soares

Life Stories

Congrats on taking over Genii! I just wanted to pass along a suggestion. I think it can get a bit monotonous having different magicians on the cover of Genii each month. It just feels like once you have read the story of a magician’s life in magic, it gets a bit “samey” after a while. I remember cover stories on specific topics, and this can make a magazine feel fresher than simply putting a different magician on the cover. Good luck for 2025!

—Joe McKay

Someone who’s written lots of cover stories for this magazine, our editor at large Chloe Olewitz, responds:

Joe: Oh, you don’t like the resume-style profile either? I’m with you. Hopefully Peter Lamont’s book excerpt on the February cover was more what you had in mind. When we do profile magicians, you can expect those stories to be much more focused; Noah Levine did a great job with Helen Coghlan this month. And we’ve got many more story-driven covers in the hopper for this year, so buckle up.

Have something to tell us?

We encourage your comments, suggestions, and prohibitions. Reach us with the speed of email at editors@geniimagazine.com. We are, as the original genie insisted, here to serve.