You never know what you're going to get in the office White Elephant gift exchange.
On behalf of the entire Relief Staff (and Murphy), we wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for all your support in 2007, and we look forward to a bright 2008!
Get your calendars out and mark down April 17-19 of 2008, because Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writing is happening over those three days! Registration is now open, so click here to get yours in now! Kimberly and I went in 2006, and it was freakin' awesome. Of course, the Relief team will be there with as many dogs and ponies as we can muster (you know, for a dog-and-pony show ).
In other interesting news, we have some new friends over at the new e-zine Bohemian Alien. Happy Lee Del Canto, senior editor over there, emailed me a couple of days ago and introduced herself. The site looks great and they have a really fun first issue, including an article on God and aliens which of course I immediately latched onto. Why don't you go over and say howdy by clicking on this little red guy:
Tell Happy Coach sent ya.
That's the news for now. Go do something good today, eh?
Your friendly neighborhood tech guy and alien supporter, Coach Culbertson
Well gang, looks like we're completely SOLD OUT of Issue 4 and the SECOND print run of Issue 1. That's a great problem for us to have, though. We'll be drop-shipping those issues straight from our current printer for a while, so it'll probably take a little longer to get to your door. But go ahead and order them anyway, there's great work in both!
The Best of Relief 2006-2007 anthology, as you know, is up for pre-order at a special price. Go get yours reserved today before it sells out, too!
Don't forget to subscribe or renew your subscription to Relief for 2008! In 2008, the per-issue cover price of Relief will be going up, and the best way to get that big ol' book chock full of high quality fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry at only 12 bucks an issue is to subscribe now!
Submissions for the second edition of Coach's Midnight Diner will be opening up soon! Writers, get your coffee and genre work ready!
We're continuing to upgrade the website and the Relief Writer's Network, and I've been working hard to build out the Relief 2.0 system. Our store will soon go through an upgrade, and the Relief Writer's Network will soon be fully operational again! Right now, the RWN can accept submissions for Issue 6 of Relief, and you can blog and comment as well. There's a few more items, like the content and Critique Groups from the old RWN, that still need to be added, and it's taking a little longer than expected.
That's all for now, true believers! Stay tuned for more!
Your friendly neighborhood tech guy, Coach Culbertson Technical Editor
Relief Issue 4 and Coach’s Midnight Diner are shipping out on Tuesday.
Over the weekend, our living room became shipping central.Last night Ben and I sat with piles upon piles of envelopes, journals, and Diner anthologies, taping, printing, sticking, peeling, and addressing, until after midnight, motivated by my stubborn need to mail out these issues today.You’ve waited patiently; it’s time for the payoff.But it just wasn’t meant to be.
Columbus, in all of his somewhat questionable glory, has delayed your fun for another day.I was sealing and sorting, watching the clock tick away the hours of sleep I’d get before morning, and thinking to myself, I wish I had Columbus day off, because then I could go to bed, finish this in the morning, and still have plenty of time to ship.And then it dawned on me . . .Yes, the post office is closed today.Sigh . . . it is not the first postal holiday that has thwarted my efforts.
Latte, our new puppy (and Relief’s new mascot), is not thrilled with Columbus, either.She’s become used to roaming the living room with us when she’s good, and for the last three days, she’s been confined to the kitchen so that we can avoid sending you chewed up books.She’s been in a confused funk, sitting depressed in her doggie bed until we venture into the kitchen, at which point, she makes a mad dash to try to break free.I've become well acquainted with the "But I've been a good dog" look. She’s part pug and part beagle, so she’s been sharing her melancholy with us by fine tuning her howling.We love her anyway, but it will be nice to have a puppy proof living room again soon.
At any rate, it won’t be long now.If you haven’t already ordered your copy of Relief Issue 4 or Coach’s Midnight Diner, the time is now—we’re ready and waiting.
Sale on Relief Subscriptions
For the month of October, we’re offering a discounted rate for a full year of Relief.You can save an extra dollar per issue by purchasing your subscription at only $44, saving you nearly two dollars off the cover price of each issue, and gaining you free shipping, saving you another handful of cash!Subscriptions are vital for the well being of Relief.They help us figure our printing and budgeting needs, allow us to estimate our numbers for advertisers, give us the confidence to offer cash prizes to authors who receive our editor’s choice awards, and cover the cost of contributor’s copies.
Decisions are already being made for February’s issue, the first of Relief Volume 2.It’s amazing and exciting, but it’s also a little nerve-wracking, since so many of our subscriptions began with our first issue and are expiring once the fourth issue hits doorsteps.For those of you who are encouraged by the direction that Relief is taking, thrilled with the possibility of a high quality anthology of Christian genre fiction, or, well, relieved that there is another outlet for Christian writing, please consider subscribing today.Your support keeps us afloat, and we love you for it.
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Latte, our new puppy (and Relief’s new mascot), is not thrilled with Columbus, either.
