I’m back from Europe: it was fascinating and tiring and productive and long in a short period of time. Still haven’t had time to go through the 1,517 photos I took in Montenegro and Vienna, but I’ll get to it soon.

Instead, since I’ve been home, I’ve been hard at work catching up on missed deadlines. But one thing I didn’t miss was the Fantastic Books Kickstarter campaign for the anthology Jewish Futures. Somehow, without me ever expecting it, the campaign has surpassed its ultimate stretch goal, meaning that, instead of just one book, we’ll be producing two. We haven’t discussed what the title of the second volume will be, whether it will just be number 2, or if we’ll pick a completely different title. But whatever we call it, everyone who has backed the campaign (at the $5 level or more) will also be receiving a copy of that second book when it’s available (sometime after the first, which is still on schedule for July 2023 publication). And with 46 hours left to go in the campaign, there’s still time to tell people that, at whatever pledge level, you’re now getting two books for the price of one!

I’m just amazed at the number of people who have backed the campaign, who thought as highly of the project as we do. Thank you, all!

Boy am I bad at this stretch-goals thing. We set them to encourage people to keep contributing to Kickstarter campaigns, even after the initial funding goal has been met. Well, we managed to blow right by the first stretch goal for Jewish Futures before I even said anything about it. That means everyone who is backing the campaign at the $5 level or more will be getting a free story from SM Rosenberg. And now we’re closing in on the second stretch goal: at $7,000, we add more stories to the book, which means more awesome reading for all you readers, and more submission slots for all you authors who we didn’t realize ahead of time we desperately need to have in the book (as I’m writing this, we’re a scant $253 shy of that goal). Remember, even though we reached the initial $6,000 goal to guarantee existence of the book, the campaign continues for the full 30 days, ending October 20.

And while I’m talking about Kickstarter and you awesome people who helped us spread the word, I should also talk about two other campaigns. We joined forces with eSpec Books and IAMTW to cross-promote each other’s campaigns (eSpec is publishing three novels, and has already reached its funding goal; IAMTW is publishing a fascinating-looking anthology that should appeal to those of you who loved our recent Three Time Travelers anthology, but it hasn’t yet reached its funding goal). Assuming all three fund, anyone who supports all three, and adds on the $1 Communal Support add-on, gets a special package of electronic reading. Check out all three, and help our fellow publishers publish too!