by Joe Siegel

Boston-based LGBTQ publication The Gay and Lesbian Review is undergoing some changes in an effort to reach a younger readership. Richard Schneider Jr., who founded the magazine in 1994, is planning to retire this year. Schneider is currently its editor in chief.

Jeremy C. Fox is now serving as managing editor. He is a former journalist and editor at the Boston Globe who left the newspaper in 2024.

“He plans to still be involved with the magazine,” Fox says of Schneider. “It’s been his baby for a very long time. I’m still learning the ropes of how the magazine operates. When he retires, I will take over as editor in chief.”

The Gay and Lesbian Review “has a lot of loyal readers,” said Fox, 50, a longtime president of the Boston chapter of NLGJA: The National Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists.

“I’m trying to bring in younger and more diverse readers. I’ve been recruiting some younger and more diverse contributors,” Fox said. “I really want the magazine to represent the entire community. I want to bring in more voices and perspectives and younger people who have a whole different experience of being LGBTQ.”

Fox notes he is a GenXer and Schneider is a baby boomer, so their perspectives are very different from people in their 20s.

“We’re trying to bring in different perspectives and introduce our older readers as well [to] the perspectives of younger people. We all benefit from understanding one another, understanding other pockets of the community that we are not members of. Hopefully that builds solidarity among the community as well,” said Fox.

Fox believes The Gay and Lesbian Review will be able to exist in print for the immediate future, despite many other print publications falling by the wayside.

“It may reflect the fact that a decent portion of our readership is older but people still like seeing the magazine on nice glossy paper, being able to thumb through it. Our models for magazines are The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker, and they’re still in print. Their print editions don’t seem like they’re going anywhere,” said Fox. “Picking up a magazine and looking through it is a more enriching experience. I don’t own an e-reader. I have never read a book on Kindle or anything like that. I like paper books. It’s not just baby boomers who still read in print. I think there are lots of people younger than me who do. I hope we’ll be able to continue publishing a print edition for a long long time to come.”

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Volume 28
Issue 2