100 Stories, ∞ More: How one conversation became 100 stories and an infinite dream.

There is something strange about reaching a century.

You spend so much time creating the next thing that you rarely stop to appreciate what the tally really means. One story becomes another. An interview becomes a relationship. A photograph becomes a record. A conversation becomes an archive. Then, somewhere along the way, the numbers begin to mean something.

The Stagazine is infinite; yet 100 is not simply a milestone. It is a reflection of everything that happened between the first story and the people, places, ideas, mistakes, discoveries and conversations that gave the publication its shape.

To mark the moment, Editor Phemelo Moipolai and Writer Palesa Matabologa sat down to reflect on writing, identity, culture, the beginnings of Stagazine and what happens when a publication begins to outgrow the form it started in.

01: WHY WE WRITE

Finding a voice through lived experience

Palesa: Writing has always been personal for me. I’m interested in lived experience and in writing from that first-person perspective. I want someone reading it to feel like they were there.

Phemelo: And I think writing became a responsibility for me. Once you're telling somebody else's story, you're not just writing anymore. You're thinking about what gets remembered and how someone is represented.

The distinction is subtle, but it says a lot about how Stagazine developed.

For Palesa, writing emerged from experience from observing, feeling and finding language for what was happening around her.

For Phemelo, the role gradually expanded from writer into media journalist and editor, where the responsibility became one of shaping the story itself: its structure, its tone and ultimately its place within the wider publication.

Somewhere between the personal and the editorial, Stagazine found its voice.

Writing became more than producing an article. It became a way of making sense of people, places and experiences while creating a record of them.

02: THE START IS THE BEGINNING

You don't always know you're building something

Every archive has a first entry. For Stagazine, those early stories were written before there was any certainty about what the publication would eventually become.

Palesa's first published piece, A Night to Remember, Soft Saturday at Homework House, was simply one of the early stories that helped establish the publication's rhythm.

Palesa: When you look back at the early pieces, you can see that you were still figuring yourself out as a writer.

Phemelo: That's the thing about beginnings. You don't realise you're building something while you're building it.

The publication developed through doing. Contributors came and went. Guest writers joined the mix. Conversations became articles. Personal stories existed alongside brand and product-focused cultural writing.

There wasn't necessarily a grand strategy behind every story.

There was a willingness to publish the next one.

And then the next. Until the collection itself began to tell a story. The beginning, in retrospect, becomes more significant because of everything that followed it.

03: CULTURAL IMPORTANCE

Making space for the stories around us

Stagazine's cultural role has always extended beyond simply covering what is already popular.

Phemelo: We never wanted to only document celebrity culture. Some of the stories that matter are about people building something quietly.

Palesa: And sometimes a story can actually change something for someone. You write about an artist, someone discovers them, someone reaches out. The article becomes part of their journey.

That idea sits at the heart of the publication's community work. Coverage has been used to spotlight local artists, promote releases, create calls to action and introduce audiences to people whose work may otherwise have remained within their immediate circles.

The responsibility of cultural writing is therefore not only to describe what is happening, but to consider what deserves to be seen.

A small event can be culturally significant.

An emerging artist can be culturally significant.

A conversation between people who are building something together can be culturally significant. The archive becomes valuable because it records culture while it is still happening before hindsight has decided what mattered.

04: HIGHS & HI'S

The relationships behind the stories

When people think about a publication's highlights, they often think about the biggest interviews or most successful stories.

The conversation reveals a different kind of highlight reel. There are long days covering events such as Afrogames. There are early interviews and the nervousness that comes with speaking to people you admire. There are unexpected encounters, including an Ocean Basket interview where a subject's own encouragement helped make the conversation memorable.

Palesa: Interviews were intimidating at first. You have to grow out of that shyness.

Over time, the approach changed.

Phemelo: The interview isn't really about being a fan. It's about having a human conversation.

That shift is significant.

The strongest interview isn't necessarily the one that produces the most impressive quote. It is often the one where someone feels comfortable enough to stop performing and start talking.

And then there are the HI's... the introductions, check-ins and relationships that continue beyond the published story. People change jobs. Agencies change. Projects end.

But relationships remain.

Contacts remember the publication and continue to invite it into rooms.

Some of the most valuable things Stagazine has built therefore never appeared on the website. They exist in the network of people who have become part of its story.

05: BOX OUT THE BOX

Following resonance instead of categories

Stagazine has never fit neatly into one editorial category.

Music sits beside film. Film sits beside fashion. Fashion sits beside lifestyle. Brand work sits beside personal profiles. Community stories sit beside cultural commentary.

The connecting factor has never really been the category. It has been curiosity.

Phemelo: We’ve always followed what resonates rather than what we're supposed to cover.

That approach shaped the publication's film coverage, which developed from personal reviews into a more deliberate interest in stories that could reveal something deeper about the industry or surface people whose contributions are often overlooked.

Music discovery worked in a similar way.

One artist leads to another. A streaming platform reveals a new sound. A live event introduces a collaborator. Following networks becomes a form of editorial research.

The question becomes less about who has the biggest name and more about whether there is something worth saying.

Palesa: Sometimes you find the story because you follow the person.

The box, in that sense, was never the point.

The story was.

06: MIXED MEDIA FORMAT

When the story outgrows the page

The publication began with writing, but writing was never going to be the only language available to it.

Photography, video, audio, design and social media have gradually become part of the wider editorial ecosystem.

Phemelo: The medium shouldn't limit the story.

An interview can become an article.

An article can become a visual story.

A photograph can become a record of a moment.

A conversation can continue through audio.

The more Stagazine developed, the more apparent it became that storytelling doesn't belong exclusively to the written page. The article may have been the foundation, but the mediums around it created new ways for audiences to enter the story.

That evolution also points toward the future. The question is no longer simply what should we write? It is also: What is the best way to tell this story?

07: CHALLENGES & TRAILS

Learning while building

A hundred stories also means a hundred opportunities to get something wrong.

There were long event days, nervous interviews, logistical challenges, changing editorial expectations and the ongoing challenge of building something while still learning what it was supposed to become. The publication grew through trial.

Palesa: You grow with the publication. You become more confident because you're doing it.

That growth extended beyond the original writers.

Phemelo describes creating opportunities for new contributors to shadow and learn, including plans to connect emerging writers with people already working within the Stagazine ecosystem.

There was also the collaboration with Red & Yellow, where two student groups contributed around ten articles exploring personal branding and creative business.

Publishing became a form of mentorship.

The archive therefore records more than finished stories.

It records development.

Writers learning how to interview.

Contributors finding their voice.

Editors learning how to shape a story. A publication learning how to become a publication. The challenges are part of the trail.

08: WHAT'S NEXT?

From 100 into ∞

The final question is perhaps the simplest one:

What happens next?

For Palesa, the ambition is to see Stagazine become a full-time pursuit. The publication has already changed the way she approaches writing and interviewing, giving her confidence while making the work feel increasingly purposeful.

For Phemelo, the future extends into developing more writers, more stories and a publication that can become a lasting cultural archive.

But neither vision feels limited to another hundred articles.

Phemelo: I don't think the future is just more articles.

Palesa: It feels bigger than that.

That “bigger” is where the infinity comes in.

The first 100 stories tell us where Stagazine has been.

The ∞ asks where it can go.

Perhaps the next story is written.

Perhaps it is photographed, filmed, recorded, designed or experienced.

Perhaps it exists in a medium that Stagazine hasn't explored yet.

That is what makes 100 feel less like an ending.

It is evidence of a foundation.

A hundred stories show that the conversation can continue. They show that people will contribute, that communities will respond, that writers will grow and that culture will keep giving us something to document.

Stagazine started with writing.

It grew through conversation.

It found meaning through community.

It became an archive through consistency.

And now, at 100, the invitation is to keep finding new ways to tell the story.

Tell the storyteller's story. And this 100th edition is our story. Thank you for being part of this journey as the rest remains to be written.

100 Stories, ∞ More.