Happy 12th Birthday, SurLaLune

Yes, twelve years ago today, having just received my M.I.S. and feeling rather at a loss for future employment, I decided that I wanted to further develop my student project of an HTML annotated Bluebeard as at least a temporary hobby by expanding into other tales and building several new pages over several days then launching them to a public server.  The rest is history, as they say. The jobs have come and gone but SurLaLune has hung with me as well as the husband I picked up much earlier that year.  1998 was a really good year for me despite all of the upheaval and changes or perhaps simply thanks to them.  I shared the story in more detail last year at Happy Birthday, SurLaLune!

This year I added the projects of several SurLaLune paper publications with several more planned for 2011.  Cindrella Tales From Around the World and Beauties and Beasts from Around the World will be arriving in the coming months as well as The Grateful Dead Tales From Around the World which is so nearly finished its laughable it hasn't gone to press yet. It's thanks to a severe illness this fall and other distractions it has been delayed, but it will arrive soon, although Cinderella might come first.  We'll see.  Stay tuned.

   

 

This blog has also flourished and along with the books has become my primary focus. The site is updated in bits and places, but not much is added to it in bulk at this point. I still have dreams of adding a fiftieth and final annotated tale, since I am an even number type, but that's not anytime soon.  The books get priority at this point.

Anyway, I want to thank everyone for their support and readership.  The blog has hosted visitors from 150 countries this year while the main site has hosted 213 countries. I never imagined a world audience when I started this but there is one many of whom who have shared that this information would be unavailable to them any other way due to limited resources.  In the end, SurLaLune wouldn't exist if I didn't have someone to share it with for I would just crawl away and read more for pleasure than sharing. This little project of mine has now existed for almost a third of my life.  Next year it will officially be a third, so do the math and learn my age....

This week is a horrible week for an anniversary/birthday celebration.  I feel sorry for anyone with real birthdays this week.  Unless you love it.  What do I know?  Anyway, I am traveling. Most of you are away or otherwise indisposed by holidays and/or weather.  So to make up for the slow internet traffic and other distractions, I will be having some giveaways in January--and I will finally send out the books I have already promised people, too--as well as launching the previously discussed SurLaLune Book Club. Remember to go check out or buy your copies of Sisters Red for January, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales for February and A Tale Dark and Grimm for March. (Covers below because those are some delicious covers.  You should also see the cover for Jackson Pearce's next release, Sweetly.

  

Not part of the book club (yet) but I had to share after seeing it for the first time today.  Can you guess the fairy tale?