The Elephant Words Giant One Year Shake-Up
This week at Elephant Words sees the biggest change around thus far in the writing roster, as we take our first birthday as an opportunity to shift things around.
First up, we say goodbye to three of the site’s founding contributors:
Josh Hechinger, our very own Young American, is moving on to free up more time for his many other writing projects. First and foremost a comic creator, Josh has used EW as a way of flexing his prose muscles, and his pieces have always been energetic and with added AWESOME!
Rol Hirst has strayed away from the site before, but finds it difficult to stay away from EW for too long, so I shan’t eulogise him too much, beyond saying that I don’t think he has written a single dud piece, though he will almost certainly argue this. With any luck he will take his time away to work on projects that will show everyone else what the readers and writers here already know; that he is a great writing talent, and he should already be being interviewed about his latest novel on Richard And Judy’s sofa.
(Mainly because, you know, he’d hate it.)
Douglas Noble was already a critically acclaimed and hard-working writer and sometime comic artist when he took on EW, and this last year has only seen him get busier. He has treated EW as an opportunity to workshop ideas, and his writing has always been thoughtful, literate and brilliant. Knowing Douglas, he probably has big plans for the future.
All three writers will be missed incredibly. Quite honestly, the site couldn’t have existed, or have been as creatively successful as it has been, without all of their work and commitment, and I hope that they will stick around to see what happens next.
Nicolas Papaconstantinou (that’s me) will also be taking a six week break from contributing to the site, to recharge his batteries.
To take over from the outgoing writers, we are welcoming some familiar faces, as well as some altogether new blood:
Chris Beckett has been supporting the site from the very first week, and has regularly contributed pieces to the forum area. He is a versatile and talented writer who has found himself quite busy in the last few months, so we are very lucky to have him for the next six weeks.
Andrew Cheverton, comic writer and artist extraordinaire, is another founding writer at the site, and is making a welcome return for a six week stint, starting today. Andy was a prime mover in encouraging and helping me to put together the site in the first place, and he tends to use EW as an excuse to write outside his comfort zone, so it is always cool to see what he comes up with. When his work thrills you, you stay thrilled for a while.
Monk Eastman is the talent behind the shared-world flash-fiction site “50 Years From Now”, and he has very kindly agreed to fill-in at EW for the next month and a half. His writing at 50YFN is pretty smart and rich stuff, so it should be interesting seeing what he does with the lunacy that is the EW schedule.
And finally, we welcome Dan Lester as our new regular contributor. Dan is a bit of a guerilla creative, using his website and small-press comic Monkeys Might Puke to showcase his slightly lunatic short movies, comics and other shenanigans. I have literally no idea what his contributions to the site are going to be like, and that is pretty exciting all by itself.
Thanks again to all of the outgoing contributors for their stellar work, and to all of the incoming writers, we look forward to seeing what you can do!
And to all of our readers, because we know that you’re out there, thanks for reading. Remember, if you like what we’re doing here at Elephant Words, please give us feedback, either in the forum or the comments, or if you’re a bit shy, by using the ratings. And if you fancy a go at making something up after seeing one of the pictures, well, what’s stopping you? We’d love to see what you come up with!
