Publisher's Note
Publisher’s Note: The Price We Pay for Learning
My daughter had her first volleyball game over the weekend (well, her first two games, actually, because they double up on some of the weekends). It was awesome to see her playing again. She hasn’t been on a court since the world shut down in March 2020, right after basketball season ended.
She also just finished her fourth full week of school. Which has been crazy and chaotic but well worth it so far for her. She’s loving it.
Not that any of this has been easy. Covid has seen to that, of course. Every time we drop her off at school or volleyball practice comes with fear. Will this be the day she’s exposed to Covid?
Publisher’s Note: Full of Fall Frivolity
It’s officially autumn, my favorite season. And although I miss the crisp weather and fall colors of New Jersey (where I grew up), I make up for it with fall treats: pumpkin cream cheese muffins, apple pie, apple cider, pumpkin cream cold brew coffee, and my new favorite: a hot Caramel Pumpkin Brûlée Breve from Dutch Bros.
This weekend, we’ll go get our pumpkins and gourds for the front porch and put up the Halloween decorations.
I love Halloween. It’s really the most fun holiday. Even during the pandemic. I mean, think about it: an activity that already involved being outdoors no matter the weather with everyone wearing masks!
Publisher’s Note: The Chase is On!
It feels like we’ve been fighting threats from all sides since the beginning of last year. The pandemic, climate change, political turmoil…the list goes on. Our fight or flight response is constantly activated. And we are fatigued. There’s no doubt about it.
Acknowledging that is important. So is finding ways to cope.
Fortunately, you are all readers or you wouldn’t be reading this blog right now. And we readers know how to take those much-needed breaks from reality.
Our fiction friends Boss and Coop know all about fight or flight. The main characters in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s bestselling Diving series, Boss and Coop return this week with a brand-new, pulse-pounding adventure.
Publisher’s Note: A Time for Reminiscence
With the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I’ve been taken back in time a lot lately to what the world was like in the late ‘90s/early 2000s. So many things have changed since then.
I didn’t get a text alert or push notification that the first tower was hit, I got a phone call from my then-husband.
He couldn’t even talk, he could only tell me to turn on the TV, because that’s how we got news immediately back then. But when I turned it on, there was nothing but static. It was tuned to ABC.
I lived in northern New Jersey on Sept. 11, 2001.
Publisher’s Note: An Alien Landscape
We live in crazy times. (An understatement, I know.) Weird shit keeps happening. And nothing goes the way it’s supposed to go. These are the times we live in.
Take this blog, for example.
We couldn’t post the one I originally wrote for Monday, Aug. 30, because our web host decided to delete all the content on our site (it’s a long and frustrating story filled with gross incompetence that I’d rather not rehash at this time). We finally got the site back up thanks wholly to the ingenuity of WMG’s intrepid IT Manager.
And just in case more website weirdness happens over the long holiday weekend upcoming, I felt like we should post the next blog early.
So, here we are days late for one blog and early for the next. Somehow, that seems wholly appropriate for the times we live in.
Publisher’s Note: Staying Busy
I was about to write that we have a busy week coming up here at WMG, but then I realized that could be said about any week this year. From January to July, we published 91 new books. And we’re not slowing down any time soon.
This week, we add two more titles to that count. Both are magazines edited by Dean Wesley Smith.
Publisher’s Note: Setbacks and Opportunities
I remember just a couple of months ago writing about our last 50 percent off workshop sale, which we called The Last Sale. Vaccination rates were going up here in the US, Covid numbers were coming down, and we seemed to finally see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. It wasn’t over yet, to be sure, but we had hope.
I knew Covid wasn’t done with us yet (as I’ve mentioned, Nola still isn’t eligible to be vaccinated, so my family never really left masking and other mitigation measures behind), but I didn’t see the Delta variant coming.
Publisher’s Note: The Power of Charting Your Own Course
Like many things with the pandemic, watching the 2020 Olympics (in 2021) has been a very different experience. The athletes in their Bane-like medal masks is not even the weirdest part. It just feels…not so enthralling. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe we all...
Publisher’s Note: Fun, Fun, Fun
Fun, fun, fun. The Beach Boys song came to mind today because of the video for WMG’s current Kickstarter campaign promoting the Pulphouse Fiction Magazine subscription drive. Why? Because the video is silly and fun and hopefully captures some of the Pulphouse spirit.
Watch the video, or just hop on over to the Kickstarter page and check out all the terrific bonus books and workshops you get when you subscribe to the magazine.
Get your subscription so you can still have fun, fun, fun, even if your dad takes your T-bird away.
Publisher’s Note: When Life Hands You Lemons
Sometimes life throws you for a loop. After 2020, we all seem to be experts in that. A pandemic. An accident. The death of an elderly pet. All are hard. We navigate them the best we can. But sometimes life doesn’t throw you for a loop, it pitches you a curveball. And...