Seen IN

Nic Healey: So much of this year has been tied up with a big conversation about young people getting off screens. Obviously that social media ban is looming. That is in December, kids under 16 will be banned from social media. It's all part of, I guess, a question of what kids should be doing instead of being on screens. Now there's going to be huge changes in terms of the classroom. Our state government has announced it's going to put time limits on kids in grades three to six from using devices at school. But what's going to fill in the gap?

Well, what about a magazine? Which I think there'd be many, many kids going, what on earth is a magazine? But this is made by kids, for kids. It is full of content that relates to them, that they can understand. It is called theINmag. And although it wasn't specifically created to go in place of screens, I think it's going to help quite a lot.

It's the brainchild of Ryan Gow, who joins me from his hometown in Bendigo. Primary school teacher, mate, good morning to you.

Ryan: Hey, great to hear from you, Nick.

Nic Healey: I'm really excited about this. As someone who spent 25 years in the magazine publishing industry, I've had a flick through yours. It's very slick, it's very good.

Ryan: Yeah, thank you so much. I need to give credit to Tam, she's my partner as well, we're doing this together. But yeah, we've been loving the challenge of coming from a classroom to creating something for all kids in Australia.

Nic Healey: Where did the idea start?

Ryan: Well, we're both inquiry trained teachers, which basically just means, rather than your typical chalk and talk, we're really open to posing questions to kids and then anticipating which direction they'll go and figuring out how we can guide them in that direction. So it's like giving agency back to kids, to learn from each other.

We were actually on a drive back from Echuca, Tam's from Echuca originally, we're on a drive back from her family, and we're talking about how as kids I used to send stuff in to like Saturday Disney in the morning, cartoon places, and get it shown on the telly. And nowadays, with Netflix and everything, YouTube, kids don't have that. We started playing around with a few concepts and we thought, why not create a magazine for kids that goes from screens, that is quite anonymous I think when you're using screens, to something tactile, something in print that you can actually flick through and hold. So that's really where it came from.

Nic Healey: When you say that you talk to kids on this, did you take this idea out to see how it was going to fly with your younger community members?

Ryan: Yeah, we visited a lot of schools. Even now it's still in the stage where, if you actually pick up the magazine, it's slightly shorter than an A4 with 120 pages and it's chock filled with content created by kids literally from all over Australia. But every aspect of it we see as really fluid. So if a kid messages us through how they submit content, or if they get in contact with us, we'll actually make updates and changes to the mag depending on what kids want and what they see the magazine to be for them.

An example of that would be the front cover. It was really funny. This is a very small example, but at the very bottom we used to say artwork, jokes. And a girl said, why does it say artwork when art is not work? So it's a very simple change, and so we actually changed all of the front words to entice kids really, and parents, to see what's in it, to be more around themes. And that came from the girl. She actually sent the wording that she wanted. So super powerful for her.

Nic Healey: It's telling me something we should all know, but I think sometimes gets a bit confused in the conversation about where young people are in Australia today. But they are curious, they are excited, and they want to let people know what they are thinking.

Ryan: Yeah. And the big thing for us is every kid has creativity inside them. For a long time, teacher by trade, and I love teaching, Tam and I both really miss being in the classroom, we've been out for the last year or so, but you just see how creative kids are. And a lot of the time they can share it within their classroom, they go home and show mum and dad what they've created, or even at home they create something, they put it on the fridge, but the only people that see it are the people that actually come to the house and look at the fridge.

So this is a way that they can share whatever they're doing, whether it's a hobby, a passion or interest, with other kids from across Australia, and potentially inspire other kids to try it too. Take a bit of pride in what they're doing as well.

Nic Healey: And as you said, the tactile nature. I remember that's what I loved about doing print magazines, was you could walk in with a copy in your hot little hand to show other people. It just felt, maybe it's my age, but felt more immediate and more real than when I had to make that move to a more online world later in my career.

Ryan: Yeah. Well, as a kid, I don't know if you used to get this, but I used to get the Wildlife Fact File. Have you ever heard of that?

Nic Healey: I do know that, yes.

Ryan: So I used to be that kid that would check the mail every night, because I thought, oh, maybe there's another one. We really wanted to create that feeling of, oh, it's exciting to get mail, and for a kid to pick it up. As adults we've got these amazing options for magazines, like Frankie magazine and Peppermint, but for kids a lot of it was that 20 page shiny, plasticky kind of thing. We wanted to create something that feels good in your hands, and rather than something you throw away, it's like a keepsake, something you treasure. So that's really what we wanted to come up with for kids.

Nic Healey: Ryan, I talk a lot about co-design, about how when you're trying to get a program together for any particular community, if you're not talking to them, if you're excluding them from the way it's designed, it just cannot work. This way, you're looking at a magazine where so much of that creative process, in terms of what it's going to contain, how it's going to look, where it's going to go, that's from the people who are putting it together, that's from this young community. It's just selling them on the idea that this is their world.

Ryan: Yeah. I just think to myself, if a kid picks up the magazine, or they get it sent to them, and they flick to a page and they go, oh my goodness, I'm published, and it could be an illustration or a piece of writing or whatever it might be, they actually have that feeling of, geez, maybe I'm good at this. And it can actually change the trajectory of their life. How they see themselves is more powerful than what they actually learn. It's the way you view yourself. So yeah, it's huge.

Nic Healey: I haven't asked, how are you getting it out and about? It's subscription, but how often, what's it look like in terms of getting into people's homes?

Ryan: Yeah, so we've been around for about two years. The first year and a bit, Tam and I were teaching at the same time, and we actually found the balance so hard, because we're not people that do anything by half. So we were giving 100 in the classroom and then coming home and trying to manage that as well.

So we've actually found what we think is a really sweet spot. We're tri-annual, which means, I think it's February, June and October, a new one comes out. So we've actually got one coming out next week, which is really exciting.

And then the number one way the word spreads for us is people talking about it. Obviously we're on socials and that sort of thing, but we just have a lot of people that hear of it, they get it, and they go, oh my goodness, this is amazing. And I think they get those nostalgic vibes as well. And when they share it with their kids, their kids are often the ones taking it into schools and sharing with their friends and saying, hey Billy, you're a great drawer, you should try and get something published. And that's been huge for us, to see the spread like that. Admittedly it was very localised originally, but now we've got every state and territory represented, which is so cool, to see it build out like that.

Nic Healey: That is just really exciting. And you've got quite an amazing team on that publishing side, of just making sure it all fits together, the layout slick, and it's doing what it's supposed to do.

Ryan: Yeah. Our first designer, he was actually my cousin, and he was shortlisted for the children's book awards years ago for a story called The Nerdy Birdy, I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Super talented. So he sort of had the whole concept behind a scrapbook, where kids can share.

And then for the last actual four magazines we've had a lady called Lou. She's from Bendigo and she's been doing the layout since that point. And she's just so passionate about not just kids, but also neurodivergent kids as well, giving them that space where, if you're really passionate about something, here's a place where you can share and inspire others. So she's been such a great find for us for the mags. I can't speak highly enough about her.

Nic Healey: Ryan, I better let you go. Give us a sneak peek of what's happening in the next issue.

Ryan: So we've got a few really good things. We have a feature story for each one, so it's a mini six page picture story book, and the next one's very, very cool. The writing I think in the next one, as well as everything's great, but the front cover is actually this amazing peacock from just outside of Ballarat that a girl has submitted, and it just looks amazing. We're just really proud with how it looks. And there's going to be so many kids that open up, I think there's maybe about 400 kids across Australia published in it. So there'll be a lot of really happy kids I think.

Nic Healey: Mate, congratulations. And Ryan Gow, I have to say, I wish I'd had publishers as enthusiastic about magazines as you are when I was working in that as well.

Ryan and his wife Tam, they created a magazine called theINmag, specifically for kids. All the content made by kids. Comes out three times a year. Go to their website, have a look at it, subscribe for yourself, a loved one, some younger community member, or make sure that they know about it and know how they can contribute as well, because it's fantastic.