ABOUT US

Georgia Family.

A regional parenting magazine

Georgia Family Magazine was founded in 1992 by Olya Fessard, a former learning disabilities teacher. Frustrated that the administration heads required teaching learning disabled students with the same conventional and ineffective styles as they were getting in their regular classrooms, she decided that she could help more learning disabled students, more effectively, by reaching their parents via a magazine format. The aim is to help to educate parents about significant learning strategies for their children for LD students as well as others. Although Georgia Family does not focus exclusively on learning disabilities, regular features on the subject keep parents abreast of what's new in the field with constant reassurance that they can help their children become successful. The magazine is dedicated to being a timely resource for all local parents who are intent upon helping their children live up to their highest potential.

In March 1992, the magazine was first published as a 16-pager with a circulation of 10,000. Since then, it has consistently grown in sophistication of design and editorial development to its present circulation of 20,000+ copies (64+ full-color pages). Georgia Family was the first regional parenting publication in the nation to encompass articles geared to parents of tweens and teens. It has consistently won national awards from the Medill School of Journalism for both its editorial and graphics. It has won numerous awards in the categories of Excellence, Best Writing, Best Layout, and Best Reviews.

Georgia Family is distributed in book stores, medical professional offices, private schools, Toys R Us, Publix, Kroger and Food Max pharmacies, restaurants, and other places frequented by parents of growing children. It's website, www.GeorgiaFamily.com, receives more than 100,000 hits per month from all over the world.

Publisher and Editor Olya Fessard is a mother of a learning disabled child. She was raised in south Georgia, lived several years in Europe and the Middle East, and graduated from Mercer University with a B.A. in English Literature. She completed two years of graduate study in English Literature at Georgetown University.

Managing Editor Veronique Saiya graduated from Goucher College with a B.A. in Psychology.