Sara Angel has resigned as the editor-in-chief of Chatelaine, Canada's longest-running and bestselling women's service magazine, less than 14 months after she was named to the job by Toronto-based Rogers Publishing.
In a brief interview yesterday from her home in Toronto, Ms. Angel, 37, said she resigned Thursday "for personal reasons . . . that I can't get into now. But I do want to stress that I do have very positive feelings toward the magazine."
Ms. Angel, who gave birth to her second child last fall, said she has no new job. "At this stage, I'm looking forward to taking a hiatus in my career and some time off."
Chatelaine staff were informed of her sudden departure yesterday morning in a note from the magazine's publisher, Kerry Mitchell. It said, effective immediately, Ms. Angel "is no longer working with us at Chatelaine."
Lise Ravary, editorial director of women's publications for Rogers and a former editor-in-chief of Quebec Chatelaine, will oversee the day-to-day operations of the magazine for the time being.
Ms. Angel assumed Chatelaine's editorship June 1, 2006, after an expensive, wide-ranging nine-month search by Rogers. Her appointment as the ninth editor-in-chief of the venerable monthly was a surprise since her only previous magazine experience had been as visual features editor and occasional contributor for Saturday Night, which folded in October, 2005.
Chatelaine, which marks its 80th anniversary next year, had total revenues of $56.3-million last year, the highest in Canada for a magazine, according to industry tracker Masthead, while its total paid circulation for the first six months of 2006 was a solid 615,559 copies, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
However, the magazine has struggled in the past three years to find focus and definition. Staff turnover has been particularly high in the past two years, with reportedly as many as 35 employees heading for the exits. One of the departed was Ms. Angel's predecessor, Kim Pittaway, who resigned in August, 2005, just 15 months after she took the reins from Rona Maynard, a 10-year veteran as editor-in-chief. Ms. Pittaway said her departure "boiled down to a fundamental disagreement" between her and Ms. Mitchell over the impact of advertising on editorial content.
"Losing two editors in such a short period of time might suggest a reorganization is in order," said Lynn Cunningham, associate professor of journalism (magazine stream) at Toronto's Ryerson University. Previously, "Chatelaine was a stable and pretty happy shop," she said yesterday, "but it's deteriorated into this job-place from hell."
