Michal Sefler - if you are reading this and you are an actual writer, please resend e-mails.  If you're a spammer... go away. 

Added note:  please be sure to check guidelines carefully on the site.  We ARE NOT taking submissions until November, and I don't guarantee I can answer everyone who sends one anyway before deleting their e-mails.  Make sure you title them appropriately, as stated in guidelines.  If I am at all unsure if the sender is an author with a legit reason to e-mail me, I will delete them unopened.

Update today:  I have a lot of issues going on right now that are interrupting my workflow on Whispering Spirits Digital Magazine.  Please forgive me for not keeping up on the site and with information.  The site will be updated fully soon... I promise!  And the Halloween stories will go up soon also.  The editors and I have been busy preparing the anthology and all is moving forward as planned with that.

And the winners are!...

Creeping Barrage by Trent Roman

Cries In The Night by W.C. Jones

The Mistletoe Pool by Leila Eadie

Ghosts of Larymna by Sheri Fresonke Harper

Old Hag by Cameron Hill

The Heaven Beasts by William C. Burns Jr

Jack Sprat's Golem by Patricia Kirby

Take Me Home With You, Kathleen by Keith Combs

Poludnista by James S. Dorr

The Shadow Boys by Joshua Reynolds

The Stowaway by R. Michael Burns

The Thing In The Locked Room by Kevin James Miller

The Way of Things by W.C. Jones

Time Share by Carol Seck

The Christmas Teddy by Diane Arrelle

The e-anthology building has started and will continue for another month or two.

Anthology e-mails are all out.  If you submitted a story, but didn’t get an e-mail from me, it’s safe to assume your story wasn’t accepted.   But I do believe I didn't miss anyone.  All the authors with stories we accepted had to respond to my contract details and approve them before I finished sending the others out - just in case we had to go to the next story on the list.  They have all responded and I will post the author/story list here soon. 

Due to the trouble we had with lightning earlier in the summer, I’ve been limited on computer access to get my work done.  Thus, I’m behind.  I was actually two weeks ahead before that storm too.  But now it seems we have everything in place with the new computer and it should prove to be so much better than the main computer.  It’s still an entry level pc, but my husband is a programmer and he’s a wiz at getting our pcs to perform better than the same model would for other people.  He bumped it up to 1gb memory too.  I don’t need that much, but now it opens up a few more doors for me with this pc … and the kids.

So, this means that in between work at office and work at home, domestic duties, kids, and so forth, I should be able to start the web-building within the next few days.  I have a few reviews to get done and put up.  One’s done.  I’m also making the review and article section into a separate sub-magazine.  Haven’t decided on the name yet.  It will still be non-paying until the mag begins to bring in enough money to allow that … or when I’m rich.  LOL

Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I can start the email notices to the groups and listings.  Get the name changed to Whispering Spirits Digital Magazine.

Poetry contest will happen … just may not have a 2006 one.  There’s expenses I have to pay for a webhost and Ron Leming just created a new graphic we love and I want to buy it for the new splash page. Been debating a web design that will allow me to use it too.

Along with new pages and set up, there will be a few pics taken by former WS contributer, Aundrea Le Sage.  Got a few ideas where those pics will fit, just have to actually sit with the code and see how they look.

Everyone who submitted to the anthology should have their e-mail notices Wednesday night at the latest.  I've been getting them out, but only a few at a time, due to computer/internet problems at home.  Things are fixed now, but this is a left-over effect of lightning hits from early august storms. 

I'm trying to reserve Wednesday for a Whispering Spirits workday, getting work done on the anthology and the website both.  In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away at the e-mail notices.

Thanks to everyone who submitted!  There were a ton of stories to go through and so many wonderful stories that our job of choosing the ones to publish was very difficult. 

Everyone who submitted to the anthology should have their e-mail notices Wednesday night at the latest.  I've been getting them out, but only a few at a time, due to computer/internet problems at home.  Things are fixed now, but this is a left-over effect of lightning hits from early august storms. 

I'm trying to reserve Wednesday for a Whispering Spirits workday, getting work done on the anthology and the website both.  In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away at the e-mail notices.

Thanks to everyone who submitted!  There were a ton of stories to go through and so many wonderful stories that our job of choosing the ones to publish was very difficult. 

Whispering Spirits E-Zine will officially become Whispering Spirits Digital Magazine by the end of this month.  Right now I have updates plan for the last week of the month. 

The anthology is progressing nicely.  Editors are turning in their ratings at a good pace.  I should have all of them in and ready by the end of the month.  Sorry, I haven't been able to get status reports out - basically, it's that everyone's stories are being read and in process. 

I haven’t been able to fit the poetry contest I promised in the workload yet.  I’m still going to do it this year - I just may have to wait and have it for a late in the year contest instead of a fall contest.

The Halloween issue will be staff donated pieces like it was last year.  So far I know that myself and Sandie Bergen will have new, previously unpublished ghost stories to feature in it. 

A crappy headcold caused me to lose a lot of writing time - and reading time too.  I still have 65 stories to wade through for the ezine.  I still haven't thought of the new name for it either.  We still like Whispering Spirits enough to keep it, so I need to come up with something to go along with it.  If nothing suits us, it'll be Whispering Spirits Digital Magazine … at least get rid of the ezine description that it's outgrown.

The magazine itself is doing well - people are really paying attention to it.  But I've got to think of a money raising function for it.  Donations just aren't coming in … and I can't put the money I wanted to into it to get it off of Geocities.  Sad thing is that I really don't need much.  Once I get through my initial readings and emails, I'm going to sit down and brainstorm.  Do an official copywriter letter for it … shorter than a normal sales letter, I think, but still effective, I hope.  I'd love to take this venture and expand upon it.  Not only fund the WS mag area, but open God's Love back up and pay for submissions, and I have another one I want to start up - have a few people to 'invite' for the first issue of it already - just need to work out the pay and schedule and such.  I also need to work out the poetry contest.  I have a probable move coming up this fall, so I may need to rearrange the mag's schedule to allow me the time to commit to the workload.

Unless something happens between now and January to change things - I won't be offering this anthology in printed format.  I'd love to, but without the money coming in, I don't want to commit to the contributors getting their copy - and that's something I insist on.  There's other expenditures I need to think about that will come out of my pocket. 

The e-book anthology will be available on the website.  I will probably set up a store with a few items available for purchase.  Payments will process through paypal.  January is still the goal for that.  $5 is not much to offer the contributors, so at this time the e-book will be available for one year.  All proceeds from it will go into the magazine.

Once I get through the initial readings, all submitters will get an e-mail letting them know their story's status and I will also include a proposed schedule for the e-book itself, according to what writers have told me they wish to know in addition to what's in the guidelines.

We're still progressing forward on the anthology contest.  Just wanted to let people know I haven't forgotten them or ignored their submissions.

I did a web search for the zine yesterday and found a lot of discrepencies in our listings at various places.  Some listings say June 30th for the last submission period day, others say July 30th.  Not sure how that happened - there's been more than one of us posting the information.  It's supposed to be June 30th.  I'll see how many subs we have at that point that make it through slush.  If it's not too great of a number, I'll go ahead and extend it for another month to accomodate that mistake.  I'm not sure if that will happen ... we've got many many subs in.

I'm checking out options for making the anthology available on LuLu.com.  I'd like to do that and hope it'll work out.

Issue 15 of Whispering Spirits Ezine is online now.  It will run through July.  We'll resume accepting submissions for regular issues in November.

The anthology contest is still accepting submissions.  I'm finally able to sit down and read through the slush pile and see it start to go down since submissions are slower now.  If you haven't heard from me it either means you've made it through the slush pile readings or I haven't gotten to your submission yet.  I don't really expect to notify authors for a few months yet.

During the next month, I'll go over the poetry contest I want to run this year and post the guidelines for it soon.  Please stay in touch as the submission period will only run for a few months.