What It Was Like To Create a Men’s Magazine With My Husband

After releasing my women’s magazine, which celebrated feminine relationships and connection (and included resources on syncing your life to your menstrual cycle), my husband and I poured ourselves into creating a magazine for men: centered on mental health, creativity, strength, softness, and truth. 

We wanted to make something that felt real. Something that could help men feel comfortable being vulnerable; something that made men feel supported and inspired. We wanted to reframe masculinity not by tearing it down, but by expanding it. 

Here’s what we came up with. 

Creating a magazine with my husband

The process began with asking questions. At the AWP Conference in LA, Shaun and I talked to people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds, asking them one unifying question: What does it mean to be a man? 

The responses were honest, vulnerable, and refreshingly complex: exactly the kinds of conversations we hope this magazine can continue to inspire. 

“Protecting and providing for those around you.”

“Integrity.”

“Being a protector, but including yourself in that protection.”

It was beautiful to connect with people from all walks of life in that way, and to witness the shifting narrative around masculinity in real time. It’s come to be viewed as a toxic thing, and in many ways, the patriarchy has made it that way. But that doesn’t mean there is no such thing as healthy, positive masculinity. We just have to rediscover it together. 

From these conversations, we got to writing. 

I took on the intro piece, “My Life After Depression,” which meant sitting down with my husband and asking him about one of the hardest chapters in his life: his suicide attempt, his battles with depression and alcoholism, and the long road back to himself. 

In just over five years, Shaun has completely turned his life around. He’s become someone who helps others through the darkness by acting as a guiding light. Sharing his story isn’t easy, but he does it anyway, because he knows someone out there might need to hear it.

I also spoke with other men about their mental health journeys, and that experience really helped to shift my own perspective. For so long, I sang from the rooftops that “men are trash,” and I believed that masculinity itself was toxic. But I’ve come to realize that’s not the whole truth. 

Don’t get me wrong—there are definitely quite a few trash men in the world, but complaining about it becomes a vicious cycle that repeats itself with no proffered solution. The patriarchy has taught a lot of men to hide their pain, to silence their emotions, to tough it out, and that conditioning has done damage to everyone. 

Men aren’t the problem: the harmful system is. And as a community, we have the power to work against that. 

There’s also a piece I wrote about my dad: a poem that touches on the importance of fatherhood, the impact of that connection, and the grief and gratitude I still carry when I think about him. 

Last but not least, there’s the Heroverse comic book, an incredible project that is 100 percent Shaun.

Watching my husband bring his imagination to life has been one of the most rewarding parts of this whole journey. Since I met him, Shaun has always claimed to see people as animals. That playful observation became the seed for a comic book where each character is an animal, each with their own strength, challenges, and lessons to learn. 

Through martial arts and humor, the comic series will teach kids about perseverance, emotional resilience, and confidence. It’s funny, it’s heartwarming, and so him. 

If you know Instructor Anderson, you know how deeply he cares about kids. Now, he’s created something that lets that love ripple outward, reaching kids (and adults) everywhere.

We also included one of our favorite recipes, some workouts you can follow along with, and a community section filled with the voices of everyday men reflecting on what masculinity means to them. 

In short: we opened our lives up to you. This is us. A couple healing together, creating together, showing up for something bigger than ourselves.

I’m so proud of what we made, and I’m even prouder of the man I made it with.

You can check out the magazine here, and if it speaks to you, we hope you’ll share it. 

The world needs more spaces where men can just be. Feel. Heal. Create. We hope this is one of them.