Heavy/Getty Bethany Joy Lenz
Actress Bethany Joy Lenz rose to fame on the TV series “One Tree Hill” and has starred in many Hallmark movies, with her next holiday flick — “A Biltmore Christmas” — due later this year. She’s also a Nashville singer-songwriter who just released a new single, “Strawberries.” As if that wasn’t enough, Lenz has now added a new job to her responsibilities, overseeing the publication of a new “old-school” newspaper she began dreaming up two decades ago.
Lenz just launched the first issue of Modern Vintage News with a team of contributors and a week of online chats to introduce fans to her new publication. Here’s what you need to know:
Bethany Joy Lenz Plans to Publish 6 Themed Issues of Modern Vintage News
In April 2023, Heavy reported that Lenz was hard at work on what she called a “broadsheet newspaper for women” while appearing on the “Women Who Binge” podcast with Melissa Joan Hart and Amanda Lee. Tired of glossy magazines and overwhelmed by the internet, Lenz is hoping many women like her will find a simple vintage newspaper more appealing.
She told Hart and Lee, “I just felt like I want something that’s like a cool girl rag that you can, like, rip out a page or shove it (somewhere), you can fold the thing, spill your coffee on it, shove it in the car door, pass it on, wrap flowers in it, hand it to somebody you don’t know.”
Since then, Lenz has been hard at work developing the newspaper, which will be delivered to subscribers’ doorsteps six times a year for $45.
“It’s an empowering, restful and creative space,” the newspaper’s website reads. “With thought-provoking lifestyle content and a unique focus on spotlighting anti-trafficking orgs and cold cases, we’re here to challenge perspectives and foster character building choices.”
Bethany Joy Lenz Hosts Daily Online Chats to Kick Off Modern Vintage News
To celebrate Modern Vintage News’ launch, Lenz is hosting a week of Instagram Live conversations with some of her collaborators at noon central time daily through September 8, with each recorded session available on her Instagram feed.
During a conversation on September 4 with celebrity stylist Tiffany Gifford, who’s contributing to the newspaper’s style section, Lenz said that although she’s been dreaming up this project for many years, even running a “Modern Vintage” blog for a while, 2023 felt like the perfect time to finally make it a reality.
She explained, “Now I feel like there’s a huge gap in the market for things that are short, digestible, thought provoking — reading material that is also interactive and fun. I couldn’t find anything that felt like all that put together, and so I decided to create it myself and also make it aesthetically pleasing.”
Lenz said she hopes the paper inspires readers “to slow down and think about things that we probably don’t normally take the time to think about” and to give people a reason to not rely on digital entertainment and information all the time.
“I want to get us off our screens, get us away from everybody else telling us what to think,” she said.
Each themed issue of Modern Vintage News, Lenz said, includes a wide array of topics, with the first issue’s cover story titled “Practical Thoughts on Actual Magic.”
“We have historical profiles, we’ve got things like cocktail recipes and a travel section, we’ve got a wallpaper of the month, shop class — like how to fix a pipe or change the oil in your car, things like that,” she said.
Subscriptions to Modern Vintage News are available now online.