From the Editor's Desk
by T.W. Ambrose

Dear Readers,
I’d like to start by wishing you a late Happy Thanksgiving, and an early Merry Christmas. I’d also like to welcome you to the seventh issue of Digital Dragon Magazine as we close out our first year. And I think we are going to bring you an issue worthy of that honor. You’ll notice starting things off we have a feature story by Fred Warren. Fred is the author of the new novel The Muse, and we’ll have an interview with Fred later this month, so check back often. We will also be offering the fifth installment of the ever popular WindRider serial, a new short story by Walt Staples, and another short story by one of our first featured authors, and publisher of Moon Drenched Fables, Sarah Ashwood. Next for our December 15th installment, we have a trio of Christmas stories, by three familiar names: Jeffrey Conolly, Ray Saint, and a reprint of Brandon Barr's wonderful story, which we originally featured in the June issue.

Next up, I’ve had a few people ask how the DDM staff did with NaNoWriMo month. The answer can only be, not as well as we’d hoped. Now in all fairness our copy editor Julie Maurer found out she was pregnant early in the month, and the news threw her off her game (Congrats, Julie!). Our head copy editor Jen Ambrose was descended upon by almost a month’s worth of family, and still able to get a solid word count, but could not finish in the end. As far as Randy and I, no excuses, but we learned a lot about our writing styles, and look forward to finishing these novels and finishing NaNoWriMo next year.

Another area I’ve had a number of questions about involves the upcoming changes we keep hinting about. I can’t give them all away now, as many are still in the works. But I would like to share one, if you haven’t noticed yet, and that’s the planned print Anthology we are hoping to put out, containing works over 2009. The Anthology will be broken into a couple areas including features from 2009, readers' picks from 2009 and possibly a couple others. But to get a good selection of readers' picks, we need you, the reader. You can vote for your favorites of 2009 at our forums, or if you want to keep your picks private just send us an email at digitaldragonmagazine@gmail.com . To check out the voting form, just click the link below.

Vote Here (http://n2.nabble.com/Help-DDM-decide-what-to-include-in-our-first-Best-Of-book-td4080618ef3028094.html)

Finally as we close out this 2009 year of Digital Dragon Magazine, there are just some people I would like to thank for really making this all possible. First I’d like to thank the Lord, I know that all of this is possible, not because I am special in any way shape or form, but because the Lord is good, and by his will we will be around for many more years. I’d like to thank my close friend and the Senior editor of DDM, Randy Streu. Randy matches the time I put into this magazine hour for hour, and without him, we would probably all be reading some photo copied pages I sent in the mail; although my name tends to get plastered everywhere this wouldn’t be here if not for him. I’d like to thank my wife, Jen Ambrose, who has worn so many hats, from Senior Copy editor, to technical advisor, to artist; she continues to amaze me each and every day. I’d also like to thank Kim Conolly, and Julie Mauer, truly the best copyedit team any magazine has.

I’d like to thank all of our Featured Authors, who have taken time away from book tours and Magazine printings to send us some great work. I’d truly like to thank all of our contributors who continue to contribute to a little magazine that couldn’t pay; if not for all of you we would just have a lot of empty pages. I’d like to thank all of our great artists who have given us so many great covers. I’d also like to offer a special thanks, Johne Cook, Sarah Ashwood and Jeffrey Conolly: these three editors offered up large amounts of advice and support as we got off the ground. And I’d like to especially thank anyone I forgot in this list; I’m only human, and I appreciate your forgivenessJ.

In closing, I wish you all again a Merry Christmas, to each of you I wish a happy holiday, and an encouragement to not forget why we celebrate this time of year. I look forward to seeing you all again Next Year, and until then keep reading.



Sincerely,
T.W. Ambrose
Managing Editor Digital Dragon Magazine


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