Dear friend and reader, are you okay? We know the country and world is suffering. All the more reason, that we should tell our stories. Our stories, our history, our art can nudge the world to a better place.

We have received all our contracts back for the ‘Friends: Voices on the Gift of Companionship’ Anthology. We have rounds of proofreading, design, and plan for blurbs and reviews (and more) to actuate before setting a launch date. The world is in a tough place, and it doesn’t seem the best time for a launch. We will publish later in the year and then hope the world is in a better place to do more promotions and sharing in summer of 2021 for Friendship Day! Imagining we might be ready to go out to a library or bookstore for a friend event by then–perhaps. In any case, we still do plan to publish this extraordinary collection later this year. Wow, just wow. The essays , both the writing and the stories, will stun you. Friendships are not just sweet; they carry people through and around unexpected challenges.

If your essay wasn’t selected, that doesn’t mean you writing wasn’t great, it just didn’t fit. We also found that some of the essays had many strengths, but some problems that could be corrected if the writer understood more about the reader and structures of nonfiction. So, after we do much of the work of this anthology, we are going to investigate the launch of nonfiction books and courses to help writers cross some barriers. There are so many good stories out there. The world needs them.

We do plan more anthologies in the future. Have your read our last anthology?