Rewriting History

I spent most of last week in Portland, Oregon. I helped an old friend from Minnesota make the round of colleges with his high-school senior son, and then celebrated Thanksgiving with my favorite aunt and her family in that same city. January Magazine editor Linda L. Richards took up the Rap Sheet reins in my absence, and did a fine job of keeping everything rolling forward.

However, I made her job a wee bit harder. I had promised to post, on Thanksgiving Day, a list of crime-fiction-related developments from 2007 for which I was thankful. But when I reached my brother Matt’s house in Portland, I discovered that his computer was on the fritz, incapable of allowing me to so much as sign in to The Rap Sheet. Unable to find a local Internet café, I finally visited the downtown public library, where I reserved an hour’s free time on a public computer--long enough for me to edit and post Mark Coggins’ third piece about New Black Mask magazine, but too short a time for me to also finish writing my Thanksgiving post.

Only after returning to Seattle was I able to complete my work on that post. Rather than put it up late, with today’s date, I’ve installed it in the position I’d intended it should occupy all along--as part of Thursday’s contents. In that post, I applaud a pair of still-new magazines, a Web site devoted to the rounding up of free reading material, bootlegged DVDs, and more.

You’ll now find my belated Thanksgiving remarks here.