I have finally caught up with almost all of the short story submissions for so far this year. Until there is an influx of submissions, I will reduce the number of short stories-per-issue. So send 'em on in, folks! I'll be glad to have them.

One thing I have to admit; I started updating the old backup of Aphelion I did last year, and found myself temporarily locked out of the FTP server. Evidently I was downloading too much at one time. As I recall, it did the same thing last year, until I wised up and decided to only download smaller chunks of the files at any single instance. It's back to my having access now, so this issue of Aphelion isn't going to be late--if this pesky thunderstorm will hurry up and pass, LOL! Another thing is that I am working closely with a friend to set up a mirror site for Aphelion which may get around the DDOS attacks on our server, here. The Forums will be inaccessible on the mirror, but the issues, covers, and Archives should be accessible to readers outside the US once again. I'll message all our overseas writers to give them the link as soon as we can make this work. No idea when this will be available yet, though. We only came up with it this past week. To make it work, we basically have to copy every Aphelion file, then with each new issue, the original site and the mirror will both have to be updated. So please stay patient.

I will say that having the Zine be isolated away from our international readers and writers has been more than a tad frustrating. I still have hope that the situation will improve in the near future! It's all because of hackers scattered all around the world, I'm sure.

As for me, I have been concentrating on working on the house and yard, as well as preparing for October's Hallowcon. More and more of my friends from The Independent Creators Directory have been able to plan to attend. This, in spite of the fact their trip to the con and home again make my own commute there look like I'm just crossing the street to buy a candy bar. You may want to check them out for yourself. IndieCD is a group of creative people from all sorts of pursuits like writers, comic book creators, animators, jewelery craftspeople, historians, game creators, musicians, and so on. We just generally adopt the "Rising Tide Raises All Ships" philosophy of what helps one of us helps all of us. It's a great bunch of folks.

All that said, it's time for a change of pace.

The online streaming shows "Stupid O'clock" and "Last Man Standing" have been uploaded live to YouTube as well as several Facebook pages for over four years now. They are basically live-streaming chat shows covering a range of topics, modeled on the types of conversations people have after hours at SF&F conventions. Joe McKeel and I have archives of past shows on our own YouTube channels. Check 'em out if that sounds like something you'd enjoy. I've put links in our Features section that will take you to the YouTube archives of both shows.

It's high time I shut up and let you get to reading. 

Enjoy yourselves,

Dan