National wellness publication Heart & Soul has been sold by independent owner Edwin V. Avent to Brown Curry Detry Taylor & Associates, LLC–media and marketing veterans turned group investors Clarence I. Brown, George E. Curry, Patrick H. Detry and Pamela E. Taylor. Today’s announcement marks the shift in the magazine’s focus from its historically African-American female roots to one that encompasses “all women of color.â€
“We are excited about our acquisition of this important brand and readers will quickly notice a revamped, first-rate print edition and more engaging digital version of Heart & Soul,” President Brown said, in a press statement. “We will focus on repositioning the brand back to fitness, health and wellness and broadening the content, the audience, and the advertisers.”
Heart & Soul is set to be the only national publication that targets multicultural women ages 21 to 55 in the health, fitness, and wellness category.
In an effort to broaden the content, former Latina magazine editor-in-chief Sandra Guzman has been hired as editor, and the new holders will “push for a broad base of writers, new voices from different communities,†says Curry, the former editor-in-chief of Emerge
.The magazine’s current executive editor and creative director will remain on staff, and the team will work to relaunch a more dynamic website in the coming months. With the new plan, the bi-monthly magazine looks to expand its current 300,000 circulation.
Heart & Soul, first published in 1993 as part of a joint venture between Reginald Ware and Rodale Press, was owned by BET and Vanguarde Media before Avent purchased it 11 years later. The new owners have relocated the magazine’s headquarters from Baltimore to Silver Spring, Md.