Issue 1 | 11th May 2025
Our Very Big Night: The Magic Castle Awards & The Greatest Magician You Haven’t Heard of
We’re VERY excited to share a new feature with you this week…and this is it! We’ve always viewed Vanishing Inc. as a community first, and a magic brand second. And we want to be able to talk directly with you about things we’re passionate about. Sometimes it will be a free trick. Other times a current event or show you need to know about. And sometimes, like this week, we’ll take you with us on an exciting trip. Our Very Big Night: The Magic Castle Awards We were extremely touched to be in Los Angeles on May 2nd for the Academy of Magical Arts annual awards show. One of our heroes in magic (and in publishing) Mike Caveney presented us with the Literary and Media Achievement Award for our work in publishing. We got to put on tuxes and go to after-parties. It was glamorous and totally charming. You can watch our acceptance speech here.
Our Thank You Speech JOSH: In 2009 we were two best friends who shared a burning passion for magic books. So we joined forces to form Vanishing Inc. Magic. ANDI: And there were two pieces of advice that seemingly everyone in magic, and in our lives, offered us. The first one is that books were finished. Books are on the decline. There are almost no publishers left in magic. Magicians don’t read anymore. Whatever you do, don’t waste your time on magic books. JOSH: Well, it turns out that magicians do love books. To date, we’re proud publishers of more than 100 titles on magic. We love absolutely every part of the process of publishing: championing new voices in magic, helping them refine their work, and presenting it in the most elegant way possible to our community. ANDI: The second thing we were told, over and over again, is NEVER go into business with your best friend. They were right. JOSH: And for the last fifteen years, we’ve spoken multiple times almost every day, and it’s been an absolute honor to work beside this man every day. I’ve only wanted to kill him on two occasions, and I’m pleased to say, I decided against it. ANDI: That’s because he knows I’d win in a tickle fight! But in all seriousness—we’re deeply grateful to the magicians around the world who’ve supported us. Josh and I are just the lucky ones who get to accept this award. But behind us is an amazing team and a wonderful community that have shown us that magic books are thriving. JOSH: And finally, we’re grateful to The Magic Castle, The Academy of Magical Arts, to the 48 team members we’re proud to work alongside, and to all the magicians who read our publications and support our books. Thank you. Goodnight. *** The rest of the show was just terrific. We got to see dear friends like John Guastaferro (who was nominated for Lecturer of the Year, and is also putting the finishing touches on The Final Degree) and Jon Armstrong (who won Parlor Magician of the Year). Rob Zabrecky won his seventh AMA Award, this time for Close-up Magician of the Year, and we were delighted to catch up with him there. And–if you haven’t read The A, B, Z’s of Magic, which we published, we think you’d really enjoy it. It’s part of our Astonishing Essays series, and Rob gives what feels like 10,000 dollars worth of professional, creative advice packed densely into 65 pages. You can read it in one sitting, it’s just twenty-five bucks, and we feel it’s essential reading from one of our industry’s bravest artists (only the ebook is available currently–thanks a lot, warehouse fire). The Greatest Magician You Haven’t Heard of And she’s not even really a magician. Her name is Leah Orleans, and this is just a public service announcement that she’s awesome. She crushed her show at Magifest, and so we’re bringing her to The Session this year. She does juggling, acrobatics, magic, and so much killer comedy. You’re going to love Leah Orleans.
And if you haven’t yet registered for our conventions, you should. You can do that on our website. Got a question for us? We like to view these emails as a kind of dialogue, so if you’d like us to weigh in on a topic in magic, or a book or trick you’re wondering about, reply to this email and we’ll try our best to address it. Watch this newsletter Every week, we'll upload a video of us talking about the contents of this newsletter. Watch it here. Talk to you all next week,
Andi Gladwin & Joshua Jay
Vanishing Inc. Cofounders
Copyright ©`2025` Vanishing Inc. All rights reserved. Change subscription preferences