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If you haven’t seen it, Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick is on the cover of the November 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking with her new laminated veneer lumber (LVL) bench. When I proposed this cover, some of the people in our circulation department were sure I had been drinking lacquer thinner.
You don’t put women on the cover of a woodworking magazine, they said. You need a bearded, 55-year-old guy with a $7 haircut and Milwaukee’s Best beer gut.
Despite the objections, I argued that it was Megan’s bench, the bench was the cover story and so it was Megan who was going on the cover.
We sent that issue to the printer and a couple weeks later, we received the October 2009 issue of Woodworker’s Journal.
With a woman on the cover. And a plywood project.
Megan’s response: “Aw crap, they beat us to the punch.”
“Nope,” I countered. “It doesn’t count. She’s not depicted as the woodworker. She is the ‘fantasy spouse’ who is merely enjoying the project.”
Then today my copy of British Woodworking showed up. Here it is:
This PG-13 sculpture is made from Baltic birch plywood by Peter Rolfe. OK you randy Brits. When it comes to putting a woman and plywood on the cover, you win this round.
