About D Magazine

The History of D Magazine

D Magazine was founded in 1974 by two University of Texas graduates, Wick Allison and Jim Atkinson. Both had a vision of giving Dallas an independent city magazine with an impact that would serve readers' interests. They developed their concept after-hours while Allison, a Dallas native, attended graduate school at Southern Methodist University and Atkinson reported on KERA's daily Newsroom program. Their vision was backed financially by young Dallas business people who shared their belief in the need for a strong city magazine.

What was merely an idea, however, became a reality when Stanley Marcus, the legendary retailer, sent a letter to his 200,000 Neiman Marcus cardholders in the Dallas area recommending they subscribe to the as-yet-unpublished new magazine. In October of 1974, the new magazine debuted with the then-shocking cover story on "Power in Dallas: Who Holds the Cards," an analysis of the fabled Dallas establishment and the interlocking corporate directorships by which they managed the city's business. Not surprisingly, the issue was a new day for Dallas journalism. It sold out on local newsstands.

Not everyone was happy with the new magazine. It was frequently attacked, and even sued, by politicians and business interests who were upset by its candid editorial content and strong positions. But readers continued to support D even when advertisers didn't, and by 1977 when it launched its annual "Best and Worst" awards, D Magazine was an unqualified financial and editorial success.

(Founding editor Jim Atkinson remembers how we blew the lid off this city-with restaurant reviews. Read "The Wonder Years", published in D Magazine's 30th anniversary issue.)

In 1990, D Magazine was sold to American Express. In 1995 Wick Allison once again assumed the helm of the magazine and in 1996 led a group of investors in buying the magazine. Today, D Magazine is again part of the lifeblood of Dallas. Circulation has soared some 500% since 1996, and D has become one of the best-selling magazines per capita in the United States on local newsstands. The reason for its success is its devotion to editorial quality. D Magazine has been named the "Best City Magazine" in the nation three times by the City and Regional Magazine Association. Recently, D Magazine won five of the Press Club of Dallas' 2005 Katie Awards, including the awards for "Best Magazine" and the "Visual Communications Award for Magazine Design" for the March 2005 issue. The Katie Awards cover the state of Texas and its contiguous states.

D Home, D Magazine's sister publication, was founded in 2000, and in 2002 was named the "Best City Magazine" for its circulation category. In 2006, D Home received the coveted Folio Award for Best Shelter Magazine. A subscriber favorite and newsstand sell-out, it's a beautiful and authoritative source for decorating, remodeling services, furniture, accessories, gardening, landscaping, entertaining, cooking, art and antiques, as well as health, fitness, and beauty. D Home is published six times a year. D Design Book is published annually by D Home as well.

D Magazine also publishes DCEO, Dallas/Fort Worth Medical Directory, D Weddings, Private School Handbook, and FrontBurner®, a daily weblog written by D Magazine editors and selected guest bloggers. The most recent additions to D Magazine's suite of web sites include the D Weddings blog, Bridal Buzz, and Inside Corner, a daily blog covering Dallas sports.

  • Editor in Chief Wick Allison

    Wick Allison is the publisher and editor in chief of D Magazine, which he founded in 1974 and returned to in 1995. Allison is a fifth-generation Texan who was born and raised in Dallas and attended the University of Texas at Austin.

    After graduation, he worked in the White House and served in the U.S. Army. He attended SMU's Graduate School of Business, where he wrote his business plan for D Magazine. Over the next 10 years he built D into a magazine company with $30 million in revenues operating in Dallas, Houston, and New York. Allison left his company and Dallas in 1984 for New York, where he founded Art & Antiques and built it into the largest circulated art and antiques magazine in the world.

    He also served as publisher of William F. Buckley's National Review and made it the only profitable publication in the history of American journals of opinion. Allison edited The Bible Designed to be Read as Living Literature for Simon & Schuster and wrote That's in the Bible? for Delacorte. His most recent book is Condemned to Repeat It: Lessons of History for Leaders, published by Viking in 1997.

    Allison returned to Dallas and to the helm of D Magazine in July 1995.

  • President Christine Allison

    Christine Allison is the president of D Magazine Partners, Ltd. Allison founded D Home and Garden in March 2000 and served as its editor and publisher for six years. In 2002, D Home received a gold medal for general excellence by the City-Regional Magazine Association. It was the first time a regional home and garden magazine had received the award. In 2006 D Home received the Gold Award by Folio Magazine for being the best shelter magazine in the United States, the only regional magazine ever to have been awarded that title.

    In addition to D Home, Ms. Allison has served as editor and publisher of D Gold Pages, a home resource directory; D Design Book and the Parade of Homes Magazine, a custom publication for the Home Builders Association of Greater Dallas.

    Before entering magazine publishing, Ms. Allison lived in New York City and worked at John Boswell & Associates literary agency as a book packager. She is the author of numerous books, including Pope John Paul II, A Biography in Words and Pictures (William Morrow); 365 Bedtime Stories (Broadway Books); 365 Days of Gardening (HarperCollins); Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus (Delacorte); Teach Your Children Well (Delacorte); Tell Me a Story, I'll Sing You A Song (Delacorte), Mother Angelica's Answers Not Promises, co-author, (HarperCollins); Street Smarts for Kids, co-author, (Ballantine); How to Remember People's Names , co-author, (HarperCollins). In addition, she was for ten years a regular contributor to the Readers Digest.

    Ms. Allison also has extensive experience in advertising, having owned and operated a boutique advertising agency that specialized in direct marketing in Dallas, Texas, in the early 1980s serving national accounts like American Airlines, Airborne Freight and the Associates, as well as local real estate and retail accounts.

    A graduate of Southern Methodist University with a degree in journalism, Ms. Allison has lived in Dallas, Texas, since 1995. She is the mother of four children.

  • Group Publisher Susan Hicks

    Susan spent 14 years at American Airlines Publishing in a number of finance, business development and management positions before being named publisher of Southwest Airline's Spirit magazine. Under her guidance, Spirit earned the title "Fastest Growing Consumer Publication" by Advertising Age in 2005 and was lauded by the Washington Post as best in-flight magazine. She joined D Magazine Partners as Vice President Business Development in 2006 and was recently named Group Publisher. Susan is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a master of business administration from the University of Texas at Arlington. She is the mother of two children.

  • Executive editor Tim Rogers

    Tim Rogers started his career in media as a D Magazine intern in 1991. After graduating cum laude the next year from the University of Notre Dame, he worked as an assistant editor at American Way, the in-flight magazine of the airline. In 1994 Tim left to join the editorial staff of The Met, an alternative Dallas weekly, where he wrote the Katie award-winning column "Mr. Funny Guy." He went on to be the founding editor of Spirits & Cocktails, a national newsstand lifestyle magazine launched by The Met's parent company, Presidio Media. Tim later co-hosted a morning radio show in Dallas for two years, and, in late 2001, returned to D Magazine as a senior editor. In September 2002, he was promoted to deputy editor and in August of 2003 was promoted to executive editor.