Interview: Finding Local Treasures with Hart Fowler

Hart Fowler sips from his beer as the crowd grows rowdy at Sharkey’s. After a hard day at work, the clinking of glasses, the laughter from students and the small, black ashtray seems to be just what he needs.

Fowler is the editor-in-chief at 16 Blocks, a magazine that covers stories specifically about the New River Valley. After he graduated from Tech, he realized that this type of magazine is what Blacksburg needed.

“This town in not known for the arts,” Fowler explains, but I believe there is a change going on.” The magazine backs up his claim, sharing stories about the new SWOOP Gallery and Blacksburg Art Collective. What follows are questions and answers from a recent interview with Planet Blacksburg.

Q: Are you originally from the New River Valley area?

Fowler: I am. I was born in Radford and moved to Blacksburg roughly 10 or 12 years ago to attend college at Virginia Tech.

Q: When did you graduate?

Fowler: I graduated in 2004. I took three years off. I only had one credit to finish, and I was in good standing. But I became disenchanted with the university and being a student. Then I came back to finish in 2004 with [a degree in] communications, and I am one class away from an English degree.

Q: What is your background in writing?

Fowler: I have a classic story. A high school English teacher, who I also had a crush on at the time, really encouraged my writing … I have always been a big reader, so those two things together [pause] I thought I would be a novelist or a poet like a lot of young men think they will be, and then I evolved into journalism through that. I do, also, write short stories and submit them to magazines.

Q: I read that 16 Blocks magazine started in October 2007. How did the magazine come to be, and how did you come up with the idea?

Fowler: After graduating college I went to work for the Southwest Times, which is a small newspaper in Pulaski, (Va.) I worked for them as a reporter. I covered high school football, town politics, Radford politics and the Radford courts. After working with them for a year, I went to freelance for The Roanoke Times. I wrote articles for them for 2 ½ years. I started out as a sports writer, and then I evolved into covering arts and culture. I was producing three or four articles a week for The Roanoke Times. I got tired of writing articles that people my age would not read, and it encouraged me to check out the local magazine scene. It was not really existent for kids our age either. [I went to] The New River Valley Magazine and wrote two articles for them. I met the publisher, kind of a youngish man in his early forties, and I thought, “I could do what he’s doing.” And that inspired me to begin 16 Blocks. A photographer I worked with a lot with [at] The Roanoke Times [was named] Christina O’Connor. I met with her first with my new idea. She loved it and was in from the beginning. It just so happened that her boyfriend, now husband, David Franusich, … is a badass graphic designer and photographer, so I had a great team from the beginning. I also had advertising support from the beginning as well. We didn’t have to get a business loan. I sold ads for the magazine without having a magazine. If it wasn’t for that, I don’t know where we would be, but we’ve been growing ever since…

Q: Are the other writers of the magazine just volunteers, or how did you start working with them?

Fowler: I couldn’t be more pleased with the outpour of interest from the wealth of creative-minded, young people that we have here in the community. We have had more than 100 contributors in two years … Short story writers, poets, reporters, illustrators, graphic designers, photographers and videographers [have all contributed]. It has been wonderful outpour of talented, creative-minded folks. I should say musicians as well because 16 Blocks Presents is our event wing of the magazine. We have put on some awesome shows in the last two years.

Q: What types of things do you do as the editor-in-chief and publisher of a local magazine?

Fowler: As a freelance writer, I look at it as, I get paid to have ideas. I also have the “writerly” sense: There is a story everywhere you just have to look for it. Generating interesting local content is something that I had and can do from the beginning. So I generate a lot of the content ideas. Currently, I spend most of my time working with potential advertisers and advertisers that are already with us, to keep the lights on so to speak … Having a successful project is one thing but having a financially, fully-feasible project in the arts is another thing. The response has been great, but it doesn’t necessarily correlate into being able to continue, you know… I spend a lot of time lately selling print ad space; but it’s not a hard sell because our demographic is so great! It’s 20- 45-year-olds, which is one of the best demographics you can imagine in a booming, college town. Most of my time is occupied by ad sales. I look forward to changing that in the future, but I can’t complain because I am selling something that I care about greatly.

Q: About how many issues go out each year?

Fowler: Our estimated print run for issue number 19 is 10,000. We started out printing 1,000. That was when we were printing in Salem (Va.). We have since evolved and reached a level where we could work with this wonderful, new printer down in Atlanta, Ga. We couldn’t be more pleased with the quality of their print job. It’s very apparent in the magazine. It really makes our wonderful photographs, illustrations and graphic designs shine.

Q: I know you have talked a lot about advertising, but how can you give your magazines out for free in places like street corners and student centers?

Fowler: Advertising is where all the money comes from. Contrary to popular belief, [selling] subscriptions for free city style magazines and newspapers or putting coins in a steel box does not generate revenue … Print is not dead, by the way. The print ad is the most valid form in reaching an audience directly. A print advertisement will never be replaced by “banner ads” as we know them.

Q: Your magazine covers all the different cultures, arts, and businesses of a small town. How do you work with ever-changing technology and use it to be on your side, while your magazine focuses on making people slow down and look at the finer things in life?

Fowler: … As for changing technologies, 16blocksmagazine.com is close to if not the best local website. We recently have been working with video internships -

Q: What are video internships?

Fowler: We work with students from the communications department, as well as, the art department … We work with students producing video content for 16blocksmagazine.com. We had a wonderful documentary we recently produced about this awesome Graffiti Art Show we hosted at Ceritano’s [an Italian Restaurant in Blacksburg]. And we will continue to be engaged in these changing media forms.

Q: Do you think using social medias such as Twitter and Facebook help your magazine for this type of demographic?

Fowler: I wouldn’t say it helps; I would say it’s a necessity. We recently joined Twitter, and we have been on Facebook since we began. MySpace is MySpace. It’s kind of going where it is. I couldn’t be more pleased with the Twitter format. We know what’s going more so than any body here in town. Tuning into our Twitter is a wonderful way to keep updated on local arts and culture. Facebook is wonderful not only for the events we throw but events that we cover and events that we attend. We not only write about and record local art and culture, we promote it, we show up, and we are involved.

Q: How do you choose what subjects you want to write about?

Fowler: Top of the list is localized. Arts and cultures is kind of a broad thing, but it is mainly music, visual art, film and theater. We cover politics on a local level, as well on a national level; but the main focus is localizing these things. Like Tucker Max just came to town, and I interviewed him. The reason why we would interview him is because the things he is engaged in are very central to a lot of the happenings that go on in living in a university town. We interviewed Maya Angelou when she came to town. We do, do big interviews: James Lee Burke, Augusten Burroughs, Ian MacKaye. Our main focus is taking those big interviews and localizing them in the best way we can. Big magazines can cover more national stuff, but I truly believe there’s a renaissance of localization that’s occurring now and going to occur more and more in the future.

Q: You touched on the Graffiti Art Contest already, and it seemed to be such a great success. How did you come up with the idea, and why did 16 Blocks think it would do well in Blacksburg?

Fowler: Well it was an art show. Art shows sometimes do well, even here in the mountains, and sometimes they don’t. It’s a wonderful story behind the creation of the Graffiti show. We know Ceritano who owns Ceritano’s restaurant. The building was spray painted on the outside –

Q: As vandalism?

Fowler: Yes, the kid got caught, and Ceritano didn’t want him to be prosecuted and

didn’t want to go to court to testify against the kid ‘cause he, more or less, wanted the kid to finish his work. His way of dealing with that was to put down $1,000 to host a graffiti contest inside the warehouse behind his restaurant. He brought in me and 16 Blocks magazine ‘cause we’ve held successful release shows there. He really enjoyed the way we ran things when we had some big shows there. Also we had a cover story about graffiti the month before, so we were in position. It was a wonderful prize. We had 12 awesome artists show up and lay down 20-by-10 feet pieces. It was a one night only event, and I couldn’t be more pleased or more proud about the turn out. 100 folks showed up. We aired the documentary that we filmed about the process and about the discussion over graffiti as art or graffiti as vandalism ... Juxtapoz Art and Culture Magazine, which is the biggest arts and culture magazine in the Untied States, reported on the event as well. I think we are in the process, now, of putting in place a town mural project…

Q: So do you know anything about Ceritano’s trying to be a new concert venue?

Fowler: Trying would be the key word there. It’s a huge space. The coding of a huge space like that is very difficult; but he [Ceritano] is currently in engaged with a town inspector, as well as the zoning coordinator, about how to make this space happen. I couldn’t be more happy to work with him to encourage that. He’s owned that building for 15 years now. He rented it to Virginia Tech for I think half of that and he’s been trying to make that space happen for a long time now… The way that a space like that could change the downtown area is immense…

Q: I saw pictures of Floydfest and articles about The Lantern on your website and in your magazine. Are you passionate about music? What types of local and national bands do you enjoy?

Fowler: I’m a piano player and a keyboard player. I’ve played in a band my whole life, which means I have been very engaged in the local scene as long as I have been here. Local bands that I enjoy the most right now would include Hope Hop, All Kinds of Gravity, Facepaint and Jumper K.O. As for the national stage, as a keyboard player, I’ve always liked Medeski Martin and Wood. Beck is my hero. I love Tom Waits. (pauses). I do miss The Lantern, but I also feel like the other local venues really picked up the rope from where they left off. Attitudes has been having some wonderful shows. They had Perpetual Groove last night. Awful Arthur’s is putting a new sound system in and really upping their level of production and booking. Champs has been a wonderful standby that’s been here forever. The Cellar is one of the hottest, weekly venues around. Cabo Fish Taco is starting to have regular shows again. So if you think there is no local music scene, then you’re not going downtown.

Q: Do you hope that the magazine expands more, or do you want it to stay the size that it is right now?

Fowler: Well, I’m happy to say that we are going to have a couple of steel newspaper boxes, which will be wonderful. Our distribution is great already. These things fly off the racks so fast. As for growth, I am kind of interested in Roanoke and Radford. We distribute lightly there already. Our readership is growing constantly. I couldn’t be more pleased with our growth. I am interested in the possibility in becoming a weekly magazine. It depends on many factors, but I’m really pleased with the growth right now, and I don’t think our readership has peaked.

Q: If you wanted to get involved in the magazine how would go about doing that?

Fowler: I’m happy to say that we are offering more and more internships … We offer internships in web design, event planning, reporting, graphic design and video production. I would really encourage anyone interested in publishing to contact us. Journalism is a very changing field right now, and we are very aware of that. We are hip to new ideas. I would recommend contacting us with not only interest, but also with ideas that fit the magazine. One thing I learned as a freelancer is: don’t ever submit to a magazine you don’t read. Know how your pieces will fit, or if it has been written before. Come with previous work you have completed, and come with what you want to write about the most. If you don’t know what you want to write about then you need to think about that because it is a very important thing. You need to know what interests you and why.