PENNI: I think the lesson is to control the process as much as you possibly can. At one point one of the local television reporters came down to do a general interest story on the magazine. After a woman on the collective had done the interview it came out that the reporter was going to talk to a local M.L.A who was opposed to Herizons, Russell Doern, and get his opinion of us. The story had nothing to do with provincial funding, nothing to do with the abortion issue. It was just a general story. So we cornered this reporter in our office and told him we didn't think it was fair. We were very concerned and felt bold enough to confront this guy (who claimed he just wanted a balanced story) and we contacted his boss and talked him out of interviewing Russell Doern. It was exhausting but we did take control of the situation and convinced them out of their idea that every time women's views are presented you have to talk to a man about it. So I don't think I would feel as powerless in the future and I certainly wouldn't hesitate about not talking to anyone who didn't have our interests at heart.

DONNA: Why was the funding cut?

DEBBIE: The funding wasn't actually cut. We were on a five year plan and we used up our five years. We had notice that the program, which has changed name and focus several times, had come to an end but we had information from our project officers that when a business looks really good they may get more funding rather than waste the five years of financial investment. So we asked them to look at our success and the need that existed for our service and also to make a value judgment about whether alternative publishing was worth funding in Canada or not And they decided it wasn't. We had all kinds of support from our subscribers, from other publishers, from prominent Canadians like Margaret Atwood, and they simply said no.

DONNA: What's being done to restore funding?

PENNI: We are not really pursuing the funding aspects of our relaunch right now. What we'd like to do is get the magazine relaunched and funded through subscriptions and rely as little as possible on government money. Not because we felt we had to alter our editorial policy but because the money's so damn hard to get and it takes a lot of time and energy just to maintain it.

DEBBIE: And you're always white-knuckling it You only get a year's guarantee for a specific amount of money and we can't operate that way. We've got to make bigger plans if we are going to be around longer and we're not willing to put ourselves in jeopardy.

PENNI: There are other Canadian publications that have stopped publishing too, like La vie en rose in Quebec, a fantastic feminist magazine. There are a lot of barriers. Some are money, some are in distribution because of an American dominated distribution net- work, some are in advertising because some advertisers won't give you the time of day if you don't have half a million readers. We just can't compete on some of the industry levels.

DONNA: Speaking of La vie en rose, what has happened to the feminist voice in publishing?

PENNI: Well, there are still feminist publications around. There are all the regional publications, and publications of organizations like CCLOW. As much as Canada needs a national feminist magazine, there are a lot of special interest publications springing up and they are part of the feminist voice in Canada.

DEBBIE: There are still a lot of feminist publications that live and thrive in this country but that's an ongoing struggle, like Penni said. This is patriarchy and feminist publications don't make it big. You have to struggle to find your audience and it's very hard but certainly there has been a thriving feminist publishing community in Canada for years and years and years. Just because we don't see it at Safeway doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

PENNI: Yes, and I think it will continue to grow. It's the kind of thing where a few setbacks are not going to stop us from speaking, not going to stop the women's community across Canada from being strengthened. There are certainly bad signs but it doesn't spell the end of the feminist movement. We may be a little quiet right now but we'll be shouting very loudly again very soon.

Deborah Holmberg-Schwartz has been employed as a counselor at the Fort Garry Women's Resource Centre since leaving Herizons and is searching for the meaning of life while she raises her four children.

Penni Mitchell is currently on sabbatical from real feminist work and is also searching for the meaning of life while she works as a communications coordinator with the Manitoba Women's Directorate.

Donna Marion is the Manitoba director of CCLOW and chair of the Editorial Board.