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rachel’s legacy: a note from lip’s founding editor’s sister, nicole funari

Funari6

Lip’s founding editor, Rachel

To the editor and staff of Lip,

Rachel started Lip because she was frustrated that the only magazines for young women in Australia were about fashion and celebrity gossip. She had a subscription to Seventeen magazine in the early ’90s herself and knew how a magazine could show you the life you wanted to have as you were preparing to start leading one. She was not opposed to celebrity worship; if she had been I would not be able to say that I’ve seen every single Christian Slater movie made before 1996. Even the skateboarding one. But she wanted more for young women, and being Rachel, she thought she was the one who could create it. That’s the type of person she was—fearless, a little delusional, and prepared to put in the work. We all were prepared to help her in those early days. Lip would not exist without the economic and emotional support provided by her partner, Allan. Desperate for content, she even talked me into writing an article about socially responsible investing (issue three). I remember showing off every new issue to my fellow graduate students as they arrived in the mail. Not everyone gets to have a sister as cool as mine, but everyone can share what she created.

The world needs dreamers and doers. Rachel was one. And so is everyone who has ever worked on Lip. But it also needs people who have smaller ideas. Who go to work and pay the bills and buy the magazines. That’s who Allan and I are. We can’t all be Rachel, but we can support her. Lip is her public legacy, her mark on the world, and her gift to her adopted home. As proud as I am of my sister for making Lip, I am grateful to all the people who have kept it going. With that gratitude, Rachel’s estate is being donated to help Lip survive and thrive. As Rachel said in the inaugural issue, there are awesome possibilities open to you. I hope this money makes some of them achievable.

Nicole Funari

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A brief note from Lip’s editor:
When Nicole contacted me in mid-2015 to let me know that she and Allan planned to donate Rachel’s estate to Lip, I wasn’t sure how to feel. The news was bittersweet. As an independent publication with limited funds, and run entirely by volunteers, a donation of this nature is wonderful. At the same time, the circumstances under which the donation has come our way are less than so.
While the funds currently remain unspent, we do have plans for 2016. Over the coming days we will launch the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction for the fourth time, with a monetary prize bigger than it has been in previous years; in the coming months, we will give our website a much-needed face lift; and in the coming year, we hope to, once again, publish another print edition of the mag. This wouldn’t be possible without the generous donation and continued support of the Funari family, to whom we are incredibly grateful.
And, of course, we hope to continue to keep Rachel’s legacy alive and keep the magazine going strong in whatever form it takes in the future.
Jo Mandarano x

2 thoughts on “rachel’s legacy: a note from lip’s founding editor’s sister, nicole funari

  1. Hi There
    I have two almost teenaged daughters, one of whom wants to start reading teen girl magazines. I remembered that when I lived in Canberra working for an NGO Rachel contacted us about putting together a funding grant to continue Lip beyond its 10th issue. The grant wasn’t successful but I learnt later that somehow Rachel had found the funding to keep it going and when I checked out the Lip site a few years later I saw it was flourishing. My daughter and I visited today and I’m shocked to hear about Rachel – she was definitely passionate and focused about her goal of providing younger women with ideas and another view of their lives. She was dynamic and definitely cool! All the very best wishes to Lip Magazine, its staff, and its readers in 2016 and many years beyond!

  2. Rachel would be so proud of the generous gift Nicole and Allan are making. As a friend of the Funari family for so many years even before Rachel and Nicole were born, I am proud of their contribution as well. Not many of us leave a legacy as important as Lip, or a legacy of any type that leaves the world a better place, or even any legacy at all. So, despite the far-too-soon loss of Rachel’s glowing presence in our lives, her spirit will live on the way that she would wish. And everything about her will live on in the hearts of all of us who loved her so much. Wendy

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