Nationally renowned speaker, author and creator of Brio magazine Susie Shellenberger has launched a new magazine for girls called Susie.
Shellenberger served as Brio's editor for 19 years before publisher Focus on the Family discontinued its teen ministry and ceased publication last month. Focus also ceased publication of their guy's magazine, Breakaway.
Shellenberger quickly made the decision to publish her own magazine after receiving many encouraging letters from Brio fans who also suggested the new publication be named after its editor.
Susie will debut its premier print issue this May and Shellenberger is determined to make it more appealing and relevant than current and past magazines ministering to Christian teen girls. With a main focus to help readers grow spiritually, the publication will additionally cover girl-significant topics including fashion, modesty, family, self-injury, eating disorders, relationships and more.
It'll be interesting to see what direction Shellenberger goes with her new magazine. Brio has always been a great mag for teens, but Focus on the Family always had very strict, conservative guidelines for articles and photos. (I once did a story for the guy's mag that quoted an artist talking about the movie "Dumb and Dumber." I had to axe the quote because of the magazine's strict "no promotion of PG-13 movies" policy. The magazine also had to airbrush out one of the band member's lip ring for the cover photo.) Here's hoping she can tackle more edgy subjects with the same biblical perspective she had with Brio. I know a lot of people miss the teen magazine.
A website supporting Susie with additional magazine information and feature content will be available mid March. Until then, you can keep up with the magazine and Shellenberger on her blog.
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Focus on the Family ceases publication of teen magazines Brio, Brio and Beyond, and Breakway
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myname, after all the years and hard work she put into building the Brio brand for them, Focus isn't helping Susie at all with her launch of Susie Magazine. In fact, it seems their doing all they can to keep word from getting out about it. And unfortunately, for girls who loved Brio, their print subscription to Brio will not be fulfilled. Focus did say that if subscribers asked for their money back from their Brio and Breakaway subscriptions that they'd try to make that happen. So you should call Focus and ask for your money to be refunded. And tell everyone you know that had a Brio or Breakaway subscription to do the same.
So since Susie Magazine is not associated with Focus on the Family at all, and since it's a whole new thing, people wanting it will have to pay for a new subscription.
This is a huge dissapointment! Getting Brio in the mail is a highlight in my month, just as I'm sure that it is for many of my Brio sisses. Although this is very upsetting, we as sisters in Christ need to stick together, even if we don't get the help from Brio that we are accustomed to. Remember, God has a certain reason for doing this and who knows....maybe the Susie magazine will be even better than Brio. You know...Susie has had a lot of experience and most of all she has the BIG Boss on her side.
I'm gonna miss Brio sooo much but i think we should just pray that God will help Susie through this and help make this new magazine even better:)
It makes sense the new magazine is named "Susie," since Brio was nothing but a cult of personality built around Susie Shellenberger anyway. She thought it was her magazine, not Focus on the Family's.
In response to the above comment:
I was a Brio reader for more than seven years right up until it was discontinued by Focus on the Family. Calling the former Brio magazine a "cult of personality built around Susie Shellenberger" is grossly unfair. While she was the editor and creator of the magazine, most of the content was not written by her. The only regular contribution by her was the "Dear Susie" column. Sometimes feature articles were written by her, but more often they were written by other Brio staff and guest authors from around the world. If you are going to exaggerate, at least be more clear about why you disliked the magazine and share some evidence to back it up.
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