Pop-Up Magazine

Idea

New America California Fellow Douglas McGray launched an experiment to gather and present magazine-style stories by writers, radio producers, photographers, and documentary filmmakers for a live audience. Born of a simple impulse to bring people together around storytelling and ideas, Pop-Up Magazine evolved into increasingly theatrical productions performed at large venues.

Incubation

Doug took advantage of his fellowship to take a “professional risk,” learning radio reporting and editing to complement his work for national magazines and news outlets. That experience inspired the creation of Pop-Up Magazine. Later in his fellowship, as Pop-Up Magazine grew, he developed a plan to evolve the show into a production company and conceived of the California Sunday Magazine.

Impact

Widely recognized for its creativity and innovation, Pop-Up Magazine brings live multimedia journalism to tens of thousands of people per year in more than a dozen cities across North America. Launched at the end of 2014, the California Sunday Magazine publishes ambitious, deeply-reported features from across the American West, Asia, and Latin America. The magazine has been a finalist for thirteen National Magazine Awards, including for General Excellence, Reporting, Feature Writing, Photography, and Design. It was also named Magazine of the Year in 2018 and 2019 by the Society of Publication Designers—the top prize for art and design in American media. Pop-Up Magazine and the California Sunday Magazine were acquired in the fall of 2018 by Emerson Collective (also majority owners of the Atlantic).