Gifted Editor Decamps for Points South

Pity Field & Stream. Its editor, Sid Evans, is one of the best magazine journalists around -- and he's leaving town.

Evans gave notice on Wednesday. He's moving to Charleston, S.C., to become editor in chief of Garden & Gun, a fledgling high-end lifestyle magazine he describes as "Vanity Fair of the South." Well, an aspiring "Vanity Fair of the South" -- launched in April, it has a circulation of only 150,000, compared to 1.5 million for Field & Stream.

"People were definitely surprised," Evans says. "I'm a little surprised."

I first became a fan of Evans's when he was editor in chief of Men's Journal. During his 14-month tenure, that magazine, which has struggled mightily to keep a workable editorial identity in the face of Jann Wenner's whims, briefly became as good as or better than GQ and Esquire. Read the stories he edited on the Kursk submarine disaster and the lynching of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, if you can find them.

As editor of Field & Stream (and editorial director of Saltwater Sportsman), he's displayed the same golden touch. Or at least his peers think so: His two titles were nominated for a combined five National Magazine Awards last time around, an almost unheard-of feat for enthusiast magazines.

Garden & Gun sounds like another hobbyist title, but it's not written for either hunters or gardeners -- not exclusively, anyway. The name was taken from a bar in Charleston, says Evans, who is originally from Tennessee. "It's got a little bit of everything," he says. "It's about the food, it's about the music, it's about southern culture."

Having no particular interest in southern culture, I've never read it. But I'm going to start.