In Print

This is a memory now, but at the time it felt almost impossible. Burda wanted to make a magazine out of the website. Real paper, real copies, real newsstands. The whole thing had been locked down so completely that I couldn’t mention it to anyone. My parents had no idea. My friends had no idea. It was this secret sitting in my chest for months.

They’d identified what they called a publication gap—a space in the market that nobody else had even noticed. They wanted us to fill it. The name was too long for a cover, so it became A&P instead of AMY&PINK. Three letters. It sounded more official that way, more like something that actually belonged on a newsstand.

The test issue was going to be bilingual, limited print run, available at newsstands across Germany and Austria in May. €3.50. They were flying in international correspondents. Everything was bigger, glossier, more permanent than the website ever felt.

I didn’t actually believe it would work. Print felt like the wrong bet even then—the internet was already happening, and committing to paper seemed like fighting an obvious tide. But I also couldn’t stop thinking about what it would mean to hold something physical that I’d worked on, to see it on a newsstand, to know it existed as an object and not just a URL.

We were going to have to buy so much of the print run ourselves just to make sure there was enough money for a second issue. Nobody said this directly, but we all understood: the only way this magazine existed beyond the test issue was if we supported it ourselves.

That uncertainty—standing right at the moment when print still seemed possible, before everyone agreed the internet had already won—that’s what I remember most.