Alfred Hitchcock famously defined suspense by invoking a scene in a movie in which two people are innocuously chatting and, without warning, a bomb under the table goes off. Now compare that with a scene in which the audience knows there’s a bomb under a table at which two people are innocuously chatting. “In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion,” Hitchcock said. “In the second case we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense.”
A similar principle is at work on me knowing what will be in coming issues of Action. I’m not expecting any explosions, but I think we have an exciting year in store.
Previously, United Spinal’s magazine was more of an omnibus, an almost random collection of pieces determined more by their timeliness or by editorial whim than through any long-term planning. One of our innovations with Action is the monthly theme-for example, this month’s theme of Winter Travel, as exemplified by Tiffiny Carlson’s article on Kelly Gianattasio and Beth Livingston’s on planning ski trips. The contents of each Action have been guided by an editorial calendar organized around themes that have relevance to our members’ lives.
Although originally intended to help us plan the year in a more organized fashion, this innovation has had the interesting side-effect of giving me (at least) something to eagerly anticipate as the year progresses. I know what’s in store and I can’t wait to share it with you. Over the coming months we’ll be covering love and marriage, drug therapies, financial issues, SCD and the family, the arts, transportation, politics, and much more. And at the end of the year, we will be looking into the ripe-for-plucking topic of prospects for a cure.
Do these subjects sound interesting to you? I want to encourage you to drop me a line to let me know what you think, and please share with me the sorts of subjects you want Action to cover. Please send me an e-mail at action@unitedspinal.org. I hope 2007 will be a good one for you. I’m sure it will be a good one for Action.
Christofer D. Pierson
Managing Editor
