Welcome to Our Humble Abode

This photo metaphorically describes how I feel about our new site.

Come in, come in!  Get comfortable!  I certainly am.

No, not that comfortable.  We keep our pants on around here.  (Though I admire your laid-back vibe.)

This is the Burnside Writers Collective.  This is our new site.  It’s actually our third site.  Fourth if you count the Burnside Blog.

The point is, these are our new digs.  They’ve been built to our specifications, and they took a year of dreaming, raising money, building, blowing everything up, building again, blowing the rebuild up, then building again.  Hey, it took a year.

When I was seven, my brother and I got our first bunk bed.  My dad got it all set up, and when it was ready it was evening.  I called my grandma, because I wanted to show her, so I invited her over.  The problem was, my dad was still working on projects, and the house was a mess.  Later, he told me not to invite people over, even grandma, unless I asked him first.

I see his point, but I think grandma liked her grandson calling her and inviting her over.  And she did get to see that new bunkbed.

The point is, we’re still ironing out lumps and folds (especially in our archives), but we’re itching to publish.  We could’ve waited until everything was starched and clean, but who knows when that would be?  In the meantime, we’re going to publish articles, and we’re fine inviting you in, because our readers feel like family, you know?  We’re okay if things aren’t perfect.

(Seriously, there are 1,300 old articles not properly categorized, and the vast majority of our archives are not credited properly.)

If you want to know about us and our vision, click here.

For now, I want to thank a few people for getting us to this point.

First, all of you who donated to the site’s rebuild.  We could not have done this without you.  That is not a generous platitude.  We literally could not have done this without you, because we are tremendously poor (in cash, not in spirit)!

Second, John Pattison.  John is Burnside’s deputy editor, and his tireless efforts got this thing done.  I could not have done this without him.  Actually, maybe I could have, but I wouldn’t have.  No one person makes Burnside what it is, but John Pattison comes close.

Third, John Whitaker, who knew things about codes and computers we do not.

Fourth, Metaleap Design, for a logo, header, and site architecture we are right pleased with.

Fifth, Burnside’s founder, Donald Miller, and the guy who came up with our name, Rick McKinley.  They are the best mentors our community could pray for.

Finally, the Burnside community of writers, readers, and everyone else who’s helped us out along the way.  It’s difficult to describe the blessing I feel for the friends I’ve made working on this site for the last four years.  They have sharpened and supported me in ways that seem absurd, especially considering we’re scattered across the country, and there are some I’ve never met face to face.

Before you go and explore, there are two things I’d like to mention.

1) We take, actually thrive, on open submissions.  Anyone is welcome to write for Burnside.  In the past, our submissions process was unreliable, a symptom not so much of an unwieldy system (though it was partly that), but of the fact everything went through me, and I am not the most organized of individuals.  That process has been streamlined greatly.  If you’ve ever been frustrated by lack of response to an article you submitted, we apologize, and we hope you’ll try again and again.  We look forward to providing feedback and helping in any way we can to make you the writer you want to be.

2) We transfered a lot of files across publishing platforms, and many files were messed up along the way.  Because of that, some of our articles are either uncredited or credited to the wrong author.  If you previously contributed to Burnside, and you want to make sure you get credit for articles you wrote, please email us with a list of your titles.  We’ll fix it as soon as we can.

Thank you for coming.  Our home is your home.  Please tell others about us.  Please bookmark this page and come back often.

Sincerely,

Jordan Green, Editor in Chief