Merry Christmas!

Readers,

Alright, it’s still ten days away, but we won’t see you again until the New Year. I hope you’ve all had a splendid Christmas season. I’d like to wish our Jewish readers a Happy Hannukah, but I’m thinking we probably don’t have a lot of Jewish readers, being a Christian site and all.

Our church, Imago Dei Community here in Portland, has called our congregation to give heartily this Christmas, but not necessarily in the gift department. Rick McKinley (who just released the book “This Beautiful Mess”) asked us to do what we could do make gifts for our loved ones, and spend the money we save on helping charities. The folks at CoolPeopleCare.org are getting in on the action, too. Changing the way we give gifts is going to be a slow process, but I think it’s a good idea to start anyway you can this year.

As you may see, David Allen fixed the problem with author’s names. Unfortunately, we also lost the names on all of our old articles. It’s going to take a while to put them back, but we also haven’t kept track of who wrote what. If you contributed an article to this site, please email us at reviews@burnsidewriterscollective.com and let us know which articles you penned. Also, if you’ve contributed and don’t see your name on our contributers page, let me know, and we’ll fix that as well.

Our next issue will launch our weekly update feature on this site. We’re very excited, and a little nervous. We’ll start it off the way we always do, though…with our yearly top ten lists EXTRAVAGANZA! We’re encouraging our readers to chime in, so send your list of the top ten albums and movies of 2006 here.

Susan Isaacs and I appeared on the Steve Brown Etc. radio show today, the 15th. It was my first radio interview, and it was a blast being on there with Susan. Steve and his producer, Erik, were the greatest hosts, and you can hear the interview here. We’re hoping to return to the show in the future, because it was really fun.

A few months ago, we ran a review of television shows, and I mentioned how “The Office” is currently the funniest comedy on network television. As usual, I was wrong. The funniest show is “30 Rock”, which lands somewhere between “The Office” and “Arrested Development” in its comedic flavor. Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey and Alex Baldwin are tremendous, and I think the Thursday night lineup NBC has going right now is just the tops. The tops of the pops.

Lastly, the first print run for the first edition of The Ankeny Briefcase is sold out, but we’ve ordered more. If you pre-ordered a copy, I’ve been assured by the stalwart US Postal Service it will reach you before Christmas. We shipped them out a little late…apologies for that delay. The book looks great, and I know you’ll be happy with the stories. A few contributors got together the night we received the shipment and took turns customizing each copy, writing little quotes and drawing little doodles. The first 200 copies are hand numbered, and we also included a cool photo of the street sign at 1st and Ankeny Street in downtown Portland. Also, we hand delivered a few copies to folks in the Portland area (if you’re in the Portland area and haven’t received your copy yet, it will be coming with the second shipment).

On to the issue…

Beyond the front page, check out Chad Gibbs’ review of Auburn’s football season, and Michael Miller’s article on the power of hip hop.

Jordan Green
BWC

P.S. If you haven’t heard Sufjan Stevens’ incredible…INCREDIBLE…version of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”, you are missing out big time. Go listen, and be amazed.