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The economy was in recession, and women's magazines were hit hard. The Seven Sisters were warring for readers, each struggling to think of ways to stand out from the others. Redbook was the first to reinvent itself. Instead of entertaining and educating women in their 40s and 50s, the magazine dropped the fiction and the crafts and focused on issues of concern to young mothers. Redbook's new reader was often described as "the Cosmo girl grown up," a woman interested in sex as well as learning how to save for her children's college tuition and how to organize a closet.

Kunes hopped to this new Redbook in the mid-'90s as executive editor. McCall's had been sold, and she sought a position with more impact. After immersing herself in writing and editing articles for more than a decade, she wanted an opportunity to create an entire magazine, arranging all of the pieces into a book that would appeal to readers. She was fascinated by the challenge of figuring out "what people are thinking and feeling across the country" and reflecting that in her magazine's pages.

Previewing new fashions for a Redbook feature is all in a day's work for Ellen Kunes.

Redbook blossomed, its readership growing to more than 2 million. Kunes and the magazine's editor-in-chief, Kate White, tried to address all of the issues young mothers might face, from Caesarean sections to daughters maturing faster. Kunes always liked edgy ideas. "She used to start a comment with, 'This is probably a horrible idea,' and I'd think, 'A really good idea is coming,'" says White, who also appreciated Kunes' honesty. "The worst thing you can have as an editor is a 'Yes' person," she observes. "Ellen was always good at saying, 'I don't like that.'"

The two worked together so well that when White accepted the post as editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan in 1998, she took Kunes with her as executive editor. Figuring out the 18-to-25-year-old reader of the magazine that calls itself "the single girl's guide to sex and life and love" exercised a different part of her brain, says Kunes. "How many outrageous ideas can you come up with?" But the industry was changing again. A new breed of women's service magazines--Martha Stewart Living, Southern Living and Real Simple--were giving "class to mass," providing women with more sophisticated ideas for living richer lives with tasty meals in finely appointed homes. When Oprah Winfrey announced that she would join this new breed with a magazine espousing her own empowering message, Kunes won the editor's post by articulating what she thought the magazine should be: a "personal growth guide for women in the 21st century, giving readers all the tools they need to get what they want out of life." While industry tongues wagged during Kunes' tenure at O, describing a messy management with too many bosses impeding her decisions, Kunes maintains that she left O after the second issue for the same reason many women leave demanding, high-powered jobs: her children.

"I had a good relationship with Oprah," Kunes says. "She stays in touch with her roots and looks at the world through a great big prism." But the job was too consuming. Her twins were infants when she was hired and toddlers when she left in the summer of 2000. Her son Winston was diagnosed with learning disabilities during her time at O, and she says she recognized that she couldn't give what was expected at the magazine when she was needed so much at home. Few of her peers were surprised when she quit. "Ellen is a wonderful mother," says Kate White. "She doesn't want to look back and say, 'I chose the Prada fashion show over curriculum night.'"

For the next year, Kunes consulted for Hearst and spent a lot of time pushing swings at playgrounds. The period was calming, centering, but when she heard of the editor-in-chief opening at Redbook, she applied. This was her opportunity to create a whole magazine while retaining control over her hours. As White says, "The great thing about being editor-in-chief is that no one is telling you you can't leave at 5 p.m."

Now this," says Kunes, stopping at a newsstand and picking up an issue of Rosie, "is a collector's item." Rosie, which replaced McCall's, had been axed earlier in the week after a series of disagreements between the magazine's namesake, comedienne Rosie O'Donnell, and the publisher. It is almost 2 p.m., and the day has grown steamier, the New York air a combination of hot tar and car exhaust. Kunes is walking down West 57th, a few short blocks from her office, to Hearst's headquarters on Eighth Avenue, where she will be interviewed for a Magazine Publishers of America video.

Kunes has transformed from the exhausted editor recovering from a major event to the glamorous editor we know from the photographs above her monthly Redbook column, "You and Me." The contacts are in and the make-up is on, deftly applied moments before she left her office. She's not fond of the photo shoots at which she's groomed by professionals. In fact, she's not fond of pampering at all. She runs five miles around Central Park to relax.

Kunes admits that her day isn't glamorous, that lunch isn't escargot at Le Cirque, but Cheerios at her desk. Afternoons don't allow for leisurely dining; there's a lot to do before she leaves by 5 p.m. This afternoon is devoted to the December issue, which will feature singer Shania Twain on the cover. Readers like celebrities to whom they can relate, Kunes says. Meg Ryan and Jennifer Aniston are always hits. Sharon Stone is poison. Jennifer Lopez sold OK. "She has an edge," Kunes says. Readers don't like edge.

Now there are cover lines to write. "The Best Night Your Husband Ever Had," among others, may need reworking. This weekend, she and her husband, David Freeman, and their twins will drive to Salisbury, Conn., where they rent a house year-round, their escape from Manhattan. Her life, she says, "is impossible" right now, as she tries to squeeze in time to research primary schools for her boys and look for a new baby-sitter.

Kunes says she sometimes tries the time-saving tips that appear in Redbook. She buys toys in bulk for the endless birthday parties her boys attend, and she wears a scuba-diving watch that won't die when she forgets to remove it at bath time. Someday she'd like to use the October issue's suggestions on arranging and filing family photos, but she's not sure when she'll get around to that. She turns to face the white board in her office, where the pages of the December issue are mounted. Right now, she has cover lines to write. ~

A UNH associate professor of journalism, Sue Hertz is an author and frequent contributor to national magazines.

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