Costco Connection - January 2013

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Jo Packham shares stories that inspire

By Stephanie E. Ponder

WHEN ASKED WHAT title is on her business card, Jo Packham checks, only to find she’s not given herself one. “Your question [makes] me think that I should come up with something clever, since ‘president’ is so expected,” she replies. But president of Where Women Create Press tells only part of the story: The Costco member is also creator and editor in chief of the quarterly magazines Where Women Create, Where Women Cook and the newly launched Where Women Create BUSINESS.

Packham, who has never considered herself an artist, has always loved “beautiful things, beautiful artwork, beautiful jewelry,” and the people who make them, she tells The Connection while in Seattle for a Create photo shoot. It’s a passion that has taken her from running an art supply store, to working as a publisher of cross-stitch and other arts-and-crafts books, to her current job.

a t u - s

women she’s featured, to lead her to the next round of stories. Along the way, she’s built a community she trusts.

“I believe that people who work with
their hands, whether it be jewelry or garden-
ing or food, are truly good, hardworking
people,” Packham says. “They do it for the
passion, not the paycheck. Those are the kind
of people I want to surround myself with.”
their hands, whether it be jewelry or garden-
y,
ef
ek
tr

Packham took her first tangible steps toward bringing the crafty community together when she organized the national Women Create event in 2005. The same year she published the book Where Women Create: Inspiring Work Spaces of Extraordinary Women

(Sterling, 2005). But on the heels of those suc-cesses, the publisher with whom she released most of her books was bought out. Packham found herself in possession of little more than the name Where Women Create.

As luck would have it, a lunch meeting with Kellene Gilhoff, owner of magazine publisher Stampington & Company, and Jenny Doh, then editor in chief, resulted in the birth of the magazine Where Women Create. (Stampington is known for its niche

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craft publications, which have very little advertising and are published on heavy stock paper that makes for collectible issues.)

Packham set the look and feel of the magazine from the first issue: She featured approximately 12 artists—young and old, professionals and hobbyists—with each getting six to 12 pages to tell her own story in her own words.

“I make all women sign off on their
own articles,” she says, explaining her edi-
torial approach. “We correct spelling, but
not grammar. I want their personalities to
show through.”
From the beginning she has relied on the
arts-and-crafts community, in particular the
l

Business heats up

During a photo shoot for a Create story on clothing and accessory designer Robin Pearl Brown, Packham saw the need for a second magazine. “I’d been traveling a lot and saw the foodie movement coming. … [Robin] has the most beautiful kitchen in the whole world,” she explains. “I called [Stampington’s] Kellene on the phone and said, ‘We need to do Where Women Cook.’ ” The magazine was launched with the Winter 2011 issue.

Packham says the latest title, Where Women Create BUSINESS, came about in a similar way. She says that as the economy worsened, she saw many artisans who wanted to take the next step with their business but didn’t know how. Women entrepreneurs became her next target audience.

“I realized I needed to start a business magazine that I understood. There had to be a concrete takeaway,” Packham continues, adding that most business magazines make her feel dumb for not having started and sold a business for millions by her mid-20s.