Although we have received a handful of complaints (and one person cancelled
her subscription) about the Tiffany Taylor issue, it is not a significant
number considering that we printed 23,000 copies of that issue.
 
There isn't much of a response we can have, except that we received more
complaints by people disappointed that "Modern Piggie" (an April Fools joke
in issue #21) isn't a real magazine than we've received complaints about
Tiffany.  (I wouldn't have guessed there were so many guinea pig owners
out there desperate for their own magazine.  For the pile of emails we've
gotten you'd think there'd be one Guinea Pig owner brave enough to start a
magazine...)
 
We did the Tiffany article as tastefully as possible, and the "risque"
factor was certainly well below anything that can be seen while waiting in
line at the supermarket checkout (Cosmopolitan, etc.).  For fans of the
"Trixie on the Classics" column, I did do a special Trixie for this issue
(a classic nude painting with strategically placed ferrets) but Mary
vetoed it.
 
We've always been stretching the boundaries beyond the norm for pet
magazines - our first issue had Marshmallow in the centerfold along with a
"Pet of the Month" likes/dislikes page.  Issue #23 (which is at the printer
now) has a Rock & Roll theme.  Obviously there's always going to be someone
who is upset by some aspect of something that reaches in so many directions
and is always going beyond the traditional pet magazine fare.
 
As someone else pointed out, anonymous attacks (which is how this
discussion started) upon us make me wonder about the source.
 
To answer some of the questions:
 
Would we run other celebrities?  Yes.
 
Would we run Arnold Schwarzenegger?  If he likes ferrets, yes!
 
Tiffany's prime qualification was the amount of love she has for her
ferrets.  I'd love to publish stuff about lots of famous people that love
ferrets.  However, the magazine has in the past and will continue to
publish lots of stuff about people who aren't famous and love ferrets.
 
I think that showing famous people is very important, especially in the US,
for getting the general (non-ferret-owning) public to consider ferrets to
be friendly pets.  And that's what's needed to legalize ferrets places and
keep them legal.
 
Imagine the political and financial clout that someone like Schwarzenegger
packs.  Imagine if that clout could be used to apply pressure on California
legislators.  That's what I'd like to see Modern Ferret be able to
facilitate.
 
Regarding Tiffany: I would like to point out that Tiffany really went out
of her way to make things easy for us.  And she was really patient with our
lack of experience photographing people.  And she took a big chance that we
could do/say any number of bad things and even potentially harm her career.
And she and her ferrets stayed with us for several days to make sure the
photograph and interview came out OK.  We truly appreciate her support (she
even mentioned us recently when she was on the Howard Stern show).  We wish
more folks would use the powers at their disposal (whatever they may be) to
help us.
 
Now we have an example of the kind of celebrity interview we can do to show
to other potential subjects (there are some celebrities we've been trying
to get for years).
 
However, as Troy Lynn Eckart / Georgia pointed out there's a good story to
be written about a lot of ferret owners.
 
Ex: I've seen several FML posts over the years by people who drive trucks
for a living and take their ferrets on the road.  I think that has a lot of
interesting potential (after all, we are "The Ferret Lifestyle Magazine").
Issue #23 has a letter from a touring musician who takes her ferrets on the
road with her - unfortunately she didn't include any photographs.
 
Another story that I'd love to run (especially if it has a happy ending -
it would be very inspirational) is the success I hope RevTami (Tami and
Larry - May 23 FML) have with placing their ferrets in a temporary home
until they can find suitable jobs and get back on their feet.  It makes me
happy to see ferret owners working so hard to take the best care of their
ferrets possible.  To conserve money while starting Modern Ferret, we lived
at my mom's for 4 years and neither her nor my stepfather have any liking
for ferrets.  It was a very difficult 4 years, and I truly feel for Tami
and Larry.
 
So if you're someone who does something interesting with your ferrets, let
us know.  Maybe there's a story in it.
 
Even if you don't hear back from us right away, bear in mind that we (either
Mary or myself) do read everything that comes in (including the FML).
 
Bear in mind that we aren't always the quickest to respond to things, we
are truly overburdened with all of the various aspects of publishing a
magazine without a staff, and we live in a weird world of "magazine time"
(I'm working on HALLOWEEN stuff right now).
 
- Eric
 
Modern Ferret Magazine - For ferret owners. By ferret owners.
Mary & Eric Shefferman & the Fuzzies: Sabrina, Marshmallow, Knuks, Trixie,
Bosco da Gama, Balthazar, Cauliflower, Koosh, and Gabrielle
http://www.modernferret.com
[Posted in FML issue 2689]