Those who know me best understand that my first love is writing. That hasn’t been obvious over the last year or so, as I’ve pursued other projects. It’s been fantastic to have the opportunity to launch various endeavors I’d previously only dreamed about, including The Rusty Nail literary magazine and Sweatshoppe Publications. These projects are ongoing and consistently growing, but the time has come to more deeply engage in my own personal writing. This is one reason why I have begun giving my online presence a makeover, but there is further motivation.

Many of you who have followed this blog for the last couple of years know that, for about the space of a year, it was thoroughly engaged in the discussion of religion, fundamentalist Christianity in particular. This fascination, founded in my own upbringing, even spawned a book. Many posts and discussions, often heated, unfolded on this blog and on the Facebook page. As time went on, however, I began feeling an intense feeling of fatigue concerning the topic. I was changing as a person and the subject no longer excited or engaged me as it once did.

Lately, as I began to lay the groundwork for relaunching my own personal writing, I took stock of my various online outlets and was surprised at how completely they were saturated with religious and spiritual postings. Although the book and the state of the websites were a clear reflection of myself at that time, I could no longer identify with what I had written. In fact, some of the work seemed like it had been written by someone else entirely. There simply seemed no way to honestly present myself on those pages. Obviously, people change and evolve over time, but having taken almost a complete break for a good stretch of time, it seemed to approach the obscene to leave the blog as one person and show up as someone completely different. Add to this the fact that I have no real interest in discussing those old topics and you may be able to understand that I began to feel uncomfortable on my own blog.

I should make it clear that, to the chagrin of some people, I am not offering apology for those earlier writings. I still agree with a number of those posts, although I disagree with others. I have simply changed as an individual and, I feel, grown past that era in my life. It was an important time, but one that has run its course. This is not to say that I will never address it again, just that its time of dominance has long past.

With all this in mind, I decided that the best way to begin anew was to do just that. Many of the followers of the blog and old Facebook page were used to the old topics and some had joined precisely because of them…now they would be served up something entirely different. So the new Facebook page has been started from scratch. If you wish to say hi over there, please do! The blog will stay where it is, but the specific links to the religion posts have been taken down. They are currently available online through a search function, but I am considering removing them altogether.

I am jazzed to enter this new phase of my writing career and look forward to interacting with you all on this new journey. There are some exciting projects in the works, including a book of poetry, a non-fiction book on writing, and a novel (in the early stages). I look forward to bringing these to you over the coming months.

Thank you for being out there and remaining faithful friends and fans.