When I joined Team Shameless as art director in 2006, I couldn’t have predicted the impact the magazine would have on my life. Shameless gave me more than an opportunity to flex my design muscles: I became part of an amazing community of inspiring feminists, each with stories to tell and endless energy with which to tell them. That’s just one of the reasons that I was excited to step into my new, additional role as editorial director at Shameless.

Watching our organization grow over the years has been nothing short of amazing, and I’m looking forward to even more exciting projects and experiences ahead.

Since our last issue, we’ve drafted a new mandate, welcomed some new editors to our staff, brought in a new web team (with a site overhaul in the works) and restructured the way we work to better reflect the anti-oppressive values at our core (stay tuned for ways you can get involved). In the midst of this, we also assembled an interim staff of truly shameless women, who, in addition to their roles as board members, writers, educators and editors, took on the extra work of putting together what I think is a fantastic fall issue, currently on the presses. Once you get a hold of it, be sure to check out our masthead and send them a little “thank you” for their dedication, hard work and that endless energy I mentioned earlier.

This coming issue (expected to arrive mid-September) is the first of many that will strive toward our new vision. In it, we bring you a chorus of bicycle bells, the voices of our sisters at AQSAzine and options for life beyond high school. We explore rape culture, the intersection of race and feminism and the etymology of the word “cougar”. And, to tide you over until the winter, we give you the tools you need to surf the web in style, make a mean eggplant lasagna and fly a kite. Be sure to take advantage of our subscription sale before the month’s end, and I hope that you enjoy our fall issue as much as we’ve enjoyed putting it together for you.

Yours shamelessly,
 sheila

Our summer sale ends in 12 days, and if you order your subscription in the next few days, you will be among the first lucky folks to have our brand new fall issue delivered straight to your mailbox, hot off the press!

Until Sept. 1, 2010, subscription are only $12! After Sept. 1 we will be increasing our subscription price so that this volunteer-run, independent media organization can keep up with rising postal rates and other costs.

Order your subscription here. Already have one? How about a back-to-school present for your sister, your best friend, your school library, your neighbour….

Shameless is having a summer sale!

From now until Sept. 1, 2010, you can buy a subscription for only $12! Back issues for only $5! After Sept. 1 we will be increasing our subscription price so that this volunteer-run, independent media organization can keep up with rising postal rates and other costs.

Order soon, as our brand new fall issue will be mailed in a few weeks.

Hi! I’m julia caron. I’m a 24 year old queer person living in Québec City. In my years, I’ve worked as a newspaper editor, factory worker, used bookstore clerk, and film society director, to name a few. More recently, I’ve been blogging about fashion from a critical feminist perspective at my blog, a l’allure garconnière, since 2009. I’m really excited to join the ranks of Shameless, as I’ve been a reader for years and am excited to shake things up.

Here at Shameless, I’ll be taking care of Film Fridays on a bi-monthly basis. Seeing as one of my favourite hobbies is snuggling up on the couch with my best friends and a big bowl of popcorn and watching our favourite movies, I think the shoe will fit quite nicely.

I gotta say, this will be an interesting ride for me. I recently realized that most of my favourite films hardly pass the Bedchel test, and I am often drawn to men’s stories. I’ve been wondering how my (relatively radical) politics are reflected in my love of movies and my tense relationship with Hollywood. Which movies appeal to me, and why? What makes a film feminist, or even at the more basic level, what kind of movies do we want to see and make as feminists? I’m really excited to start conversations about films with you here at Shameless, to find where we agree and disagree, and what we want and need from the world of film.

So you can get to know me better, here are a handful of my favourite films in no particular order, some of which you can watch online by clicking the links:
XXY (Puento, 2007)
Pandora’s Box (Pabst, 1929)
Alphaville (Godard, 1965)
La Jetée (Marker, 1968)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, 2001)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Derren, 1943)
Kanehsatake: 270 years of resistance (Obomsawin, 1994)
le chat dans le sac (Groulx, 1965)
Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936)

But! if you haven’t seen (or even heard of) many of these films, have no fear! I’m going to try to focus on current movies, ones that are just released for rental or are still in the movie theatres, with a Retro Film Friday thrown in from time to time for good measure. And I want to know what you are watching, too. If you have any requests of films you’d like to see reviewed, send me an email! juliacaron AT gmail DOT com.

She’s Shameless has been picked to be part of the Toronto Public Library’s Word Out! 2010 reading program for teens. August 9-15 the book will be featured and discussed online as part of the initiative.

With wit and honesty, the writers share stories of their teen experiences (both positive and negative) on everything from pop culture to high school principals. The book is founded on Shameless magazine’s tradition of smart, sassy, honest and inclusive writing, and reaches out to young female readers who are often ignored by mainstream: freethinkers, queer youth, young women of colour, punk rockers, feminists, intellectuals, artists, and activists.

Check out all of the library’s 2010 picks here.

An exciting, brand new issue is being polished up while I type this, so there’s no better time to subscribe to Shameless Magazine and make sure you’re the first to get your hands on it! Order online for only $12! Get in on the action right now and enjoy three fantastic issues of Canada’s favourite feminist magazine for teens!

Already a subscriber? Please consider renewing, or making a small donation to help support the work we do. Even something as small as $2, $5 or $10 will go a long way to helping us keep our fresh alternative to typical teen magazines going. We’re entirely volunteer run and rely entirely on the support of readers just like you.

If you’ve been reading the headlines, you know that times are really tough for magazines big and small, so there’s no better time to make a small gift to the publications you love to help them survive. Every dollar helps!

Click this convenient Paypal button and support us today!

Update: Google’s given our site a clean bill of health, so you should no longer be getting any angry red warnings. Again, apologies for any trouble we may have caused you.

Earlier today, Google reported that the Shameless website was serving malware to our users. As a result, the StopBadware database has flagged the site as a potential attack vector, meaning Firefox and Google throw up angry warning messages before you’re allowed to visit the site.

Chances are very few people are reading this message right now, as the danger messages are still up. Yes, Shameless was indeed serving malware; the OpenX software we use to serve ads on the site (namely the banner at the top of the page and the small ads in the sidebar) had a remote vulnerability that could be exploited to inject arbitrary code. In normal-speak, this means hackers could exploit a security hole in the OpenX software to serve malware through our site.

We’ve taken down the ads for the time being, so the site should no longer be trying to infect your poor computer with bad juju. I sincerely hope no one suffered lasting effects from the attack, but if something on the Shameless site asked you to install any software and you said yes, then you will need to clean your computer. Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft Ad-Aware are two widely used tools to get rid of malware; virus scanners such as Avast and Microsoft Security Essentials may also be useful.

My sincere apologies to anyone who was affected by our brief flirtation with malware distribution. Hopefully it will be the last time we have to deal with a problem like this.

Like what you see? Want to support independent media? Get Shameless delivered straight to your door, three times a year, for only $12, and save a couple bucks off the newsstand price to boot!

Subscriptions are available through PayPal right now! Or, if you’d rather mail in a subscription form, you can print one off here (2,438K PDF). All prices are in Canadian Dollars (CAD).

Buy a two-year subscription and save an additional $2 off the normal subscription price. That’s $22 for a two-year Canadian subscription and $42 for a two-year American subscription.

This is just a reminder that you have less than one week to put your name forward to join Team Shameless. Here’s a reminder of what we’re looking for:

Shameless magazine, Canada’s independent, feminist voice for young women and trans youth, is expanding its editorial team. Are you devoted to grassroots publishing? Do you have a commitment to anti-oppression and inclusive feminist politics? Do you have some time to volunteer and a vision for Shameless? Then we need you.

We are looking for smart, sassy, shameless people to fill the following roles:

• A Managing Editor, who will oversee the magazine’s editorial production, assign and edit stories, work with writers and collaborate with editorial staff.
• A Web Editor, who will develop projects and content for the website, coordinate our community blog, and develop a link between the print and online components of the magazine.
• Associate Editors, to assign and edit stories and work with writers.

(more inside…)