EDitorial Comments

Happy Holidays From Murania Press

I hope all our friends are enjoying the holiday season and have been imbued with the accompanying spirit of forgiveness, because it’s time for me to open up a big can of mea culpa. Murania Press has been dormant for way too long, and I want to apologize sincerely for being unable to follow through on the shipping of long-overdue titles.

As some of you already know, conditions here in the Phantom Empire have been pretty tough for a long time now, and more than once I’ve toyed with the idea of shutting the whole thing down. On several previous occasions I announced that operations were about to resume only to have another crisis pop up to prevent me from delivering books as promised. Finally, I elected to maintain radio silence until such time as I could predict with confidence that Murania Press had turned the corner.

That time has come.

Operating as a staff of one all these years has exacted a terrible toll on me, but help is on the way. Beginning January 6 I’ll have the assistance of an old friend who’s just retired and has graciously offered to pitch in at Murania Press world headquarters. He’s a customer-service pro who’s experienced in both order processing and mailing-list maintenance, making him the ideal person to help me catch up on back orders and update the subscriber database as needed. With his aid, I’m quite sure we’ll have everything ship-shape by this time next month. Those of you with questions about the status of future orders can reach him at muraniapress@yahoo.com. Just be sure to put his name — Kevin — in the subject heading of your e-mails. He’ll answer you promptly. But remember, he doesn’t begin work here until the sixth of January.

Meantime, I want to thank all those loyal customers who’ve been patient during this difficult period in my life. The last six months have been extremely draining and dispiriting for a variety of personal and professional reasons, but I’m confident the new year will bring better things. You’ll read about some of them here in the very near future, as I’m determined to pay more attention to this blog (among other things) in 2014. Here’s hoping the new year is a great one for all!