Welcome back to the glamorous and sexy world of publishing!

The hiatus, from March 2007 to now, has been entirely because of me. Without boring with details, in this time I’ve been diagnosed with a fairly common and rather debilitating illness, and started treatment, and had some ups and downs. I can’t rule out future breaks in transmission, but I’m happy to say, right now, that ticon4 is back.

It’s a fairly open secret that editors, when they get together, and get a few drinks into themselves, talk about writers. Some of it is about who to watch out for, but most of it is who to look out for. Yes, we bitch. We bitch about the writers who send really bad covering letters, really bad stories, that badger us constantly about story status, that argue about rejections, and that don’t send us rewrites when we ask for them. We bitch about the writers whom editing is akin to herding cats, and those who seem unable to follow simple instructions. It’s the classic one-up-editorship, to see who can come up with the worst horror story.

I am happy to say that the writers appearing this month at ticon4 don’t fit into any of those stories. I’d like to thank them first and foremost, for their patience, professionalism, and belief that their words would eventually appear. I’d like to think that their regard for ticon4 and faith in me kept them from taking their excellent work elsewhere, in the two years since we first accepted their stories. Sue, Patty and Matt; thanks.

ticon4 wtf?

Long-time readers will notice things have changed a little, and the most astute and longest-serving readership may even pick up that this is really the 4th incarnation of TiconderogaOnline, since its digital birth in 1999. During this time, even I have noticed that, for some, TiconderogaOnline is a bit of a mouthful to get out. It also takes a while to type. The more savvy types have been calling us “ticon” for a while now, so it made sense to go with the flow. With ticon.com unavailable (we do have http://ticon.org) we’ve gone with the notion that this is TiconderogaOnline’s 4th series, hence ticon4. All you have to remember is ticon4.com.

New name, new format. We’re now running off a wordpress blog platform, which gives our readers the opportunity to interact with us and each other, to talk about the content, to tell us what you’d like to see. I can’t stress too much how important this is. When you read Jennifer Lusk’s article, you’ll see how so many editors and publishers are in this game for the love of it. Feedback costs nothing, and really does make a difference. We’d love it if you chose to spend some time leaving comments, telling your own stories.

isn’t the year over?

The ticon4 calendar has 365 days, and runs from 1 January to 31 December (this year it had 366 days). As I write this editorial, at least one “best of the year” list has appeared, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few more out there.

We don’t publish to the timetables of critics. We publish to the timetables of our readers, who we hope are crying out for something new to read in this season of re-runs, and our writers, whose stories and reviews have sat long enough waiting for today.

the punchline

We feel that ticon4 isn’t so much different, just more. More to read, more to do, more to think about. In coming weeks and months we’ll be bringing you a number of opinion pieces. Some of these you may agree with, some you may disagree with (some we may disagree with – the usual disclaimer of these not necessarily reflecting the views of the editors, but we support the right for them to be heard. applies). Same with our fiction, reviews, interviews and everything else we’re looking to bring you.

Our promise to you, our readers, is to never be boring. Let us know if we’re succeeding or failing. Come with us.