In 2009, starting a weblog is hardly cutting edge—in fact, maybe anything over 140 characters is passé (we do that thing too . . . see the left-hand column). Our office is teeming with luddites, some oblivious to new technology, some fearful, some hesitantly getting their feet wet. For the last ten years, our focus has primarily been concerned with that 15th century technology we love and feel at ease with—the book. Anything beyond that has traditionally taken a call in to our IT guy. Well, here we are stepping out of our comfort zone—soon many of our titles will be available as e-books, stories from our back issues will be available digitally in our archives, and, ten years after the term was coined, we’re launching a blog.

Well, ok, better late than never. As we’ve built an arsenal of writers that we love, we’ve begun to see the value of creating a new space for them…maybe a short piece by Jan Watson or Keith Lee Morris would soothe the post-partum depression of their books leaving our desks and hitting store shelves. Maybe teasing you with a sample of the new issue would encourage you to pick it up and read Anthony Doerr’s new offering (you’ll thank us). Soon we’ll have Jim Krusoe on returning to his hometown of Cleveland, Zak Smith’s musings (and sketches) from the road, Jeff Parker interviewing contemporary Russian writers, excerpts from the magazine, updates from the Summer Writer’s Workshop, reading recommendations, and whatever else our favorite writers want to provide us. If you have ideas for what you’d like to see here, please, please let us know.

So bookmark us, add us to your RSS feed, or list us in your blogroll (see how we’re picking this up?) To those who still want to read the old-fashion way, rest assured, the heart of our operation remains, year after year, to produce four magazines, a dozen books, and a workshop—all dedicated to fostering great writing.