The Highland Thing marches into spring

Vernon, N.J. — The Thing Magazine has been awarded a grant from The Puffin Foundation, Ltd., whose mission statement is to promote artistic expression for artists and artistic endeavors. Vernon’s Eileen Fanning Fisher, editor of the quarterly magazine, says that she hopes to move in a different direction with the magazine to try and make it more feasible to publish both cost-wise and in terms of seeking a greater audience appeal. “Those first issues were absolutely trial by fire,” she said. “I did not know a thing about production, but I learned fast. I also wanted to let the magazine find both its way and its audience, which the experts advise you against doing, but I did get a lot of information that way about what would not work.” The Thing, named after the Emily Dickinson poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all,” has published five issues and was also awarded a Puffin Grant in 2004. Publication of the magazine unexpectedly halted, however, in the summer of 2005, after Fisher’s husband had a severe mountaineering accident on Mount Rainier in Washington state. “Scott was with a group of climbers that were 1,200 feet up when another climber panicked and fell,” Fisher said. “The guide arrested the man’s fall, but he fell again and all four men roped together went flying down a glacier going about 50 mph. “Those first two were going so fast they sailed right over a crevasse, but my husband and his friend fell into the crevasse and by doing so, they literally yanked the other two back.” Fisher’s husband, who lay in the crevasse for five hours awaiting rescue, was very seriously injured and had to be flown by helicopter to a Seattle hospital. He sustained a lacerated liver and broken ribs, among other injuries, and he developed pneumonia after he returned home to Vernon and had to be hospitalized. “He was in very good hands though, with Dr. Scharfenberger over at St. Anthony’s in Warwick,” said Fisher of her husband, who made a full recovery and was offered the chance to climb again by Rainier Mountaineering. “Scott went back last summer and made it to the top and I was very proud of him for doing that. He really lived out the philosophy of my magazine, which is to never give up.” Fisher, who interviewed Pulitzer-Prize winning author Frank McCourt for one of The Thing Magazine’s very first issues, also ran articles on people she admired for their ability to confront impossible situations and to have hope and faith in the face of great challenges. The late Christopher Reeve was featured in one issue, as was Lance Armstrong’s mom, Linda Armstrong Kelly, and Dr. Bernie Siegel, who wrote “Love, Medicine & Miracles.” “My next issue will feature Marisa Acocella Marchetto, who wrote and illustrated ‘Cancer Vixen,’ a comic book detailing her cancer experience, which will be made next year into a movie starring Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett,” Fisher said. “I will be covering a different demographic this time around and hopefully, the magazine will continue to develop and will be an informative and entertaining tool for restoring a community of connection, something that is sorely lacking in our ego-driven society.” Previous issues of The Thing Magazine can be found at www.thethingmagazine.com and any questions about how to advertise or subscribe can be referred to the editor via e-mail to thethingmagazine@earthlink.net.