Misty Tompoles
Artslandia and En Face Magazine Founder
Misty Tompoles began her publishing career as CEO of Misty Sturgeon, Inc. at the age of 7, creating and selling magazines door-to-door in her neighborhood, and there has been no deviation in her career path since. She next became the editor of her college newspaper and literary review. After college she interned on any and all publications, landing her first paying publishing job in Portland on The Winged M Magazine. Entrepreneurship is in her DNA and publishing is in her veins, so she launched a one-woman design shop. In 2006, she brought new partners to her fledgling venture, inspiring a rebranding as PlaybillsNW.
The business model was the antithesis of the traditional playbill. With four clients in its first year, PlaybillsNW published 27 playbills with a circulation of 98,000. The company’s meteoric rise among a performing arts community that was experiencing an explosion of creation and appreciation brought a transformation to Artslandia in 2008 and an expanded mission to innovate ways to connect those who create music, dance, and theater with those who partake of it and financially support it. In 2022 she launched a new branch of Artslandia titled En Face Magazine, a publication devoted to the celebration and elevation of ballet on a national scale.
Through all of this, her primary goal has been to take care of her team so they can take care of clients, and to lead by example and support the incredible people who are so loyal to Artslandia and committed to its mission. A company is only its people, and happy people equate a successful company. Misty, as a 7 year old selling hand drawn booklets, may not have believed it if she had been told she would be at the helm of a publication with a circulation of more than 800,000 issues annually and a readership of 1.5 million, but she would have been excited as we are now to see where the journey takes her next.