Editorial, January, 2008

Dear Reader:

It’s a whole New Year. And it’s a whole new Writer’s Cramp.

As you came into the site this month, you couldn’t help but notice the vastly new look and feel of our pages; even our logo has taken on new dimensions. Everything seems different about the graphics and layout and the colors of Writer’s Cramp. We owe the new face of Writer’s Cramp to the creative vision of Rodney Ronquillo, friend and contributor and president of Landings Media.  But the one thing you’ll notice, as you flip through our pages this issue, is that the tone and flavor and the comfortable familiarity has remained firmly in place.

Writer’s Cramp is celebrating an anniversary and by one reckoning it’s the ninth, but by another it’s the tenth anniversary. We published our first short stories and poetry in the winter of 1998 under another ISP and a different domain name (even through the magazine was called Writer’s Cramp at the time, the domain name didn’t reflect it). But we didn’t catch the eye of international writers and readers until 1999, with our then Hallowe’en Special featuring Frank Thayer, Ron Carpenter, Richard Mason and Robert Liberty.

From that point our readership began to soar and the look of the magazine evolved from a dark and brooding, self-important site for the publisher’s ego-driven lit-trah-choore, and into a bright and lively magazine for the readers to enjoy and the growing pool of regular contributors to strut their stuff and test their limits. It wasn’t long before there was an atmosphere of familiar camaraderie among those writers who returned issue after issue to display their finest works.

And the readers benefitted from this atmosphere, because soon the Crampsters (as some called the group) were not content to simply submit new works; they challenged one another to feats of writing prowess that included setting popular TV Sitcoms in The Twilight Zone (see special links from the Table of Contents) or they dared each other to flash fiction contests, ghost story contests and one intrepid writer, Ron Carpenter, even challenged himself to write an entire epic poem with only words beginning with the letter ‘L’, ( see Leonard's Little Liberty).

There were also poets of immense talent attracted to Writer’s Camp. Among them are Michelle Tercha, one of the founding members of the “Crampsite,” Jan Hansen, a prolific and consummate poet whose range is still not determined after five-plus years writing for WC; Marcey Gray and Tim Lejeune have graced our pages with their prose and poetry, as has Billy Dean, Ian Little, Robert Montesino, Teri Lucia, our Eastern Brother, Swami Sampurnananda, Scott Malby, Morgan Liberty and Robert Liberty. Those are just a few of the poets who regularly share their work with us here at Writer’s Cramp.
Then there are the fiction writers.

Ron Carpenter, a founder, whose work recreating Sherlock Holmes’ adventures is so authentic we first thought we were reading Doyle’s lost manuscripts. Will Creedle, Sharon and Derek Gilbert, co-founders of the Crampsite, Ann Huseman, another Crampster who, along with Sharon and Derek have lifted the caliber of offering with every submission, JM Heluk (qv), Charles Ivie, another veteran of the Crampsite along with Teri Lucia, Marcey Gray, Tim Lejeune, Frank Thayer, Robert Liberty and Juris Rasa (the heart of the Crampsters.) These and many more are among the contributors, past and present, of Writer’s Cramp Online Magazine.

As we move into our next decade, with our shiny new face on and the dogs nipping at our heels to keep the prose rosy and the poetry pithy, we hope to welcome many new readers to our pages, so tell a friend about us and fill out the Newsletter form on the front page to get your PDF version featuring highlights of current issues and information on upcoming specials.

And if you write? Well, if you write, get your fiction and/or poetry together in Word format and send it to us from the link on the home page. After reading Writer’s Cramp, you will know what we expect from you—aside from perfection, that is—we want your genre fiction, detective, horror, suspense, humor and experimental prose. And your poetry should sing to your readers—if it sings to you, chances are it will sing for others.
Watch for more changes to Writer’s Cramp as new functionality is added and more sections evolve.

As always, Writer’s Cramp is your magazine. Enjoy what’s yours.

Sincerely,
Robert G Liberty
Founding Editor
Writer’s Cramp Online Magazine