Beginnings and Growth
Yoga Journal was started in May 1975 by the California Yoga Teachers Association, which included William Staniger, Chairman (aka William Golden since 1982), Rama Vernon, President, Janis Paulsen, Secretary/Treasurer, and board members Ike and Judith Lasater, Rose Garfinkle, and Jean Girardot. William Staniger was Yoga Journal's founding editor. Judith Lasater was Copy Editor, Janis Paulsen, Elmer Brunsman, and Jean Girardot were Assistant Editors, and Ike Lasater was Business and Advertising Director. Their goal was to create a magazine that would unite the growing yoga community and provide "material that combines the essence of classical yoga with the latest understandings of modern science."
By the mid-1990s, as yoga's popularity in America grew, circulation for Yoga Journal reached 66,000. During these years, key figures at the magazine included former publisher Michael Glicksohn, former editors-in-chief Stephen Bodian and Rick Fields and former longtime managing editor Linda Cogozzo.
In the fall of 1998, John Abbott, a former investment banker at Citicorp and an avid yoga practitioner, bought the magazine, and brought in Kathryn Arnold as editor-in-chief. In January 2000, they redesigned and relaunched the magazine. Since their arrival, the paid circulation has grown from 90,000 to 350,000; the readership is now over 1,000,000.
Yoga Journal has won five consecutive Western Publications Association's Maggie Awards for "Best Health and Fitness Magazine," and in 2007 won the Award's top honor for "Best Overall Consumer Publication."
In addition, the magazine has won four Folio Editorial Excellence Awards for "Best Health and Fitness Magazine " in the country.
In September 2006, the magazine was bought by enthusiast publisher Active Interest Media which publishes Vegetarian Times, Black Belt Magazine, and other consumer enthusiast titles.
In 2006, Kaitlin Quistgaard became editor-in-chief.
Forbes magazine has called the Yoga Journal website "the Web's most expansive and impressive Yoga site."
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