This issue of the GA Voice marks an important milestone for any small company, and especially a company in an industry that many claim is on the wane: It is Volume 2, Issue 1. Our first year is history, and we are forging full speed ahead into our second.
Like so many things in life, the GA Voice began with an ending. The seeds of the GA Voice were planted Nov. 16, 2009, when the staff of Southern Voice — the city’s LGBT newspaper for more than 20 years — learned that paper’s parent company, Window Media, had changed the locks and filed for bankruptcy.
It was an abrupt end to a long, slow decline brought on by a poor economy, declining advertising sales in print media, and most importantly, Window Media’s drive to expand the chain at all costs.
Laura Douglas-Brown
Editor and Co-Founder
Laura Douglas-Brown is an award-winning writer and editor with more than a decade of experience covering local and national issues that impact Georgia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. She joined the staff of Southern Voice in 1997 and served as the paper’s editor from 2006 until its closure in 2009. She launched the GA Voice with Chris Cash to help ensure that our community always has a “Voice.” Douglas-Brown is a proud soccer mom who lives with her partner, Donna, and two daughters in northeast Atlanta. She is a card-carrying member of the PTA and, at press time, had 72 Diet Coke cans on her desk.