I wanted to take a moment to update all of our Writer's Hood family about some of our new ventures. Although I have not found a suitable group or person to take over the Hood as a magazine, we are still looking. I've kept the domain and kept the storefront here because I know some of you continue to check back in on us. I really do appreciate the e-mails I still get from Hood alumni!

So let me tell you a little about some of our Internet projects I'm doing. I never really got out of the business entirely, but rather I decided to focus more on providing information on specific topics for people. I was always frustrated by having to go to lots of web sites in order to find information on one topic! So I developed a kind of portal where I collected all of the best information on one specific topic, and that's how NewsOnly.org developed. With the advent of RSS feeds, it became easier to find data sources for each topic, so I developed a system using an RSS feed aggregator to show all the best data feeds for each topic on one page. It was still slow going developing each topic site because I wanted to ensure the quality of data.

With new software, I can now develop topic specific sites, with good data, much more quickly! So far I've got four different general topics, Technology, Entertainment and Health and the Olympics. If you visit each site, you'll see a list of each topic in the left hand column directly under the advertisements. You can see each category here:
Olympics
Technology
Entertainment
Health

I hope these informational sites are useful for you! Please let me know what you think.

Thank you again for all of your time and support!

Jeff Mason
Editor-in-Chief

It's with a heavy heart that I write this note. Since 1996, The Writer's Hood has been a labor of love, never intended as a profit maker. It's mission was to be a community for writers, both veteran and amateur, and since our humble beginnings, we have always strived to be a great place on the Internet.

But after all these years and lots of hard work by great editors and staff, the founders have decided to close The Hood. The past year we've suffered through two hosting companies abruptly going out of business and this last time was the final straw. We had just spent considerable time and money to upgrade to a new publishing system, and just as we were testing it, we lost everything. 

However, the past 8 years have been great. We've met thousands of writers and published their work. We've kicked off the careers of writers who now make their living writing. We've provided lots of great reading to unknown numbers of people through the years. And the whole time we've had a lot of fun. 

I can't say enough about all of our editors. Through the years, quite a few people have had enough motivation to take on an editorship and helped out writers in twelve different genres. Some editors could stay only a few months, some stayed for our entire tenure. But they all contributed to making The Hood a real community and a great magazine. I want to personally thank each and every editor for all their hard work. I wish the very best for all of you.

And I especially want to thank our readers. Wow, have you been faithful! You've been supportive of our writers, taken part in our message boards, recommended the site to friends and most importantly, were a supportive audience to some great writers. So thank you for being here for us.

Of course, I want to thank every writer who submitted work to us. Through the years, the number of submissions grew to the point where editors needed associate editors to help read all of the work you submitted! Not all of you were published, most of you were, but I'm glad you found us and thought enough of The Hood to submit your writing to us. Sometimes that's a scary thing, especially to someone who's just beginning to write. But you did it in huge numbers. Thank you for taking your time to come to us.

I'd thought about doing a special retro-issue, showing you some of the early Hood issues, giving you a chance to see how far we've come, and to get a good chuckle. But right now I'm too sad. Brian Lee and I founded The Hood, known back then as The Little Read Writer's Hood, with high hopes of making a magazine that was worthwhile, that would make a difference. I think we achieved that, and that is something to be grateful about. 

But The Hood has been a part of my life for so long now that I will miss it. It's like leaving a loved one.

I would love to see The Hood mission carried on. We just can't do it any more. If anyone is interested in purchasing the whole magazine; domain, graphics, everything, and keeping the cause alive, contact me, we'll talk.

In the mean time, thank you again. You've been a great audience. Thank the editors you worked with, they'd be glad to hear from you.

Jeff Mason, (former) Editor-in-Chief

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