We recently connected with Cathrine Khom and have shared our conversation below.
Cathrine, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Growing up, I was encouraged to read books because the more educated I am, the more successful I will become. I remembered going to the magazine section of the library after I trailed off from looking through a handful of cookbooks. I’ve always felt that my calling was in the world of magazines, whether it was celebrity gossip, fashion editorials or even surf magazines– I loved the whole experience of flipping each page to see how everything was outlined and structured for each print issue. It was my ideal playground that I would rather be surrounded by magazines more than anything else. This inspired me to the point where I wanted that feeling of this “experience” when people read print issues of Local Wolves. It’s not just editorials and photography– we’re sharing stories of dedicated creatives who love what they do and the common denominator is that everyone’s path is not linear, as we all may face challenges and obstacles to get to where we are today. The story behind this mission of Local Wolves is bringing back the feeling of nostalgia, an old-school type of reading when you grab a magazine and just experience the fresh smell of print pages. When you’re excited to discover something new, partially want to gatekeep for yourself but you also want to immediately tell your friends about a talented artist who deserves more attention. We hope you get that feeling when you read Local Wolves.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Hi there! My name is Cathrine Khom, a fellow creative soul based in Southern California. I run Local Wolves Magazine as the founder and editor-in-chief for the past 13 years. You’ll usually find me in the magazine aisle with an iced matcha latte or cooking a delish meal at home. Besides my love for magazines, I work full-time in the field of healthcare configuration. My love for music started when I was in my younger years, just dancing and singing to Cambodian singers, Britney Spears to NSYNC– I have to thank Total Request Live (TRL) for all things music. Fast forward, I went to my very first concert to see the Jonas Brothers on their Burning Up Tour– from the terrace view, I noticed photographers in the photo pit and I made a promise to myself that I will be there one day since I was always a huge photography nerd. During my high school years, I came across a Tumblr post looking for photographers to join a digital magazine alongside to do recaps, reviews and interviews. I felt like this was my time to take a risk and go for it, and while I was quite anxious that I didn’t have gear like others, only a point and shoot camera, I knew that I could make it work and build up my portfolio. I’m so grateful to have been able to contribute to music blogs and magazines, where I learned so much from working as a team to rolling up my sleeves to help in any way that I can for the publications that I worked for. This led me to creating something that I had no idea would change my life forever. I created Local Wolves on April 12, 2012, as a music focused blog to share concert recaps, music news and even lifestyle in the SoCal area. It was fun to connect with others and built a small but mighty team who believed in shining the light on local artists and talents in the music scene. When I started university, I decided to take a break from taking photos and running the blog at the time, to focus on my nursing career. During the hiatus, I really missed creating our digital issues and being a part of a team to create cool stuff. There were many moving parts which landed me to watch endless amounts of YouTube videos and I came across Our2ndLife (O2L) channel. I reached out to one of the members of O2L, where we took photos and held an impromptu meet-and-greet and there were so many requests to create our issues in print. I had no idea where to begin so I had less than 24 hours to make it happen for everyone to get a copy of the issue and thankfully, Magcloud was a lifesaver. It was so refreshing to curate our print issues with fresh faces, diverse talent and really cool people doing cool things, as they all deserve the recognition to be heard and seen. From featuring artists and musicians like Halsey, P1Harmony, Troye Sivan and Conan Gray to talents in the digital space of YouTubers and content creators, such as Orion Carloto, Jenn Im to photographers like Deanie Chen. I’m so proud of the accomplishments that we’ve made as a team, in which we independently published 70 print issues as a quarterly based magazine with 100+ contributors, submissions from all over the world with an internal team of writers, photographers, graphic designers and here we are today, as we just celebrated 13 years as a magazine. What makes us special? We got a decade under our belt with the ongoing dedication to continue to feature incredibly diverse talent in the creative space. We will continue to learn and grow as a magazine, and I feel like that’s the beauty when it comes to magazines, you evolve, adapt and take risks.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson that I had to unlearn was feeling creatively stuck in a constant burnout. When one issue went live, I usually would give myself a day to debrief and catch up on the hours of sleep– then I’m already working on the next issue. It felt like a nonstop hamster wheel of my mind continuing to stress about things that were outside of my control. The emotions were very high and it even brought up thoughts of just ending the magazine entirely, so I can just relax for once. It was a constant movement with no rest breaks, no social life and I lived for my inbox by the never ending emails. During the mist of 2020, I knew in my heart that a hiatus was needed because I lost the sight of direction and found more limitations than creativity for this magazine. I took those years to fill my cup first, and rediscover things I love to create– from cooking, fashion and lifestyle content was what I was mostly consuming. I enjoyed making videos, pouring my soul back into penpal letters and digital art. I felt like I was becoming myself and I started to care for myself– I felt like time flew by so fast that I was not living in the present at all. I felt like I had to relearn how to connect with my friends, find new hobbies and practice self-care. Productivity doesn’t have to be a completion of a long list, but it’s okay to take some time to rest and reset your mind. During these offline hours, I focused on work and tried to stay up to date with all of the things I loved about all the magazines I came across in bookstores. I’m still a work in progress, as I’m trying to balance a full-time job, maintain genuine relationships with my friends and family, and run a magazine. It sounds like a lot, and sometimes I look back and I’m still shocked that it’s even possible. Luckily, I’m blessed to have a really great team to make this dream a reality for me and our readers. I’m a firm believer to practice gratitude every single day, celebrate the wins together and even acknowledge the losses, as learning lessons.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
Being a creative who runs an independent magazine on your own, it’s no easy process as I feel like I had to overcome more struggles and ongoing obstacles to be honest. For non-creatives, I often get asked about running the magazine, “isn’t it just emails right, how hard can that be?” Communication and organization are major aspects of running a team, especially since we have a remote team from the US, UK and Canada. It truly does take a village to make each feature happen and it’s a two-way street from follow-ups, keeping tabs, admin work and time-sensitive deadlines to keep everything streamlined and to stay in sync with the team. The most frequently asked question, which I assume many fellow magazine founders can understand– “do you make money from your magazine?” My immediate response would be “yes, I wish!” because who wouldn’t want to do what they love as their full-time job and get paid for it? It’s the dream, which I know that it can be achievable. However, as mentioned earlier, this takes a village to create an issue every season, from brainstorming, outreach to production– there are so many moving parts. We’re so fortunate to collaborate with very talented creatives who believe in what we do. We’re here to share stories of those living out their dreams– let’s not be laser focused on the numbers and stats because the whole essence of being creative is going for the unconventional path.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://localwolves.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cathrinekhom
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localwolves
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/localwolves
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cathrinekhom
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/localwolves
https://www.tiktok.com/@cathrinekhom
Image Credits
Kevin Ninh by Lucy Drewelow
Dayglow by Gabby Agustin
Chanpan by Dillon Matthew
Group Issues (Left to right: Deanie Chen by Sammi C Wong, Ashe by Olive Jolley and P1Harmony by Vanessa Le)