The official thank you is in the book. But the Kickstarter thank you? This is it.

I want to really thank every one of you that backed Event Horizon and tolerated a month of black hole metaphors on your timeline because you follow me and/or Janus Point Press, especially during turbulent times in the world. I want to thank those of you who promoted the campaign. And I have to start, as I do in my acknowledgment letter inside the book, thanking Seth Christian Martel and cousin Aaron Guzman. They endured a month of texts from me throughout this campaign, and they updated me on the campaign when I took a detox from the screen, HEY DID YOU CHECK WHERE YOU ARE?! There was no escape.

Thank you to all the artists who are part of this book. I am letters and words without you and your work. You are what caught the first gaze of folks, you are what helped bring these stories to life in multi-mediums and genre. I could not do such things with a pencil and legal pad alone. Thank you Chris Allo of Magnus Arts.

Thank you Jellop for introducing me to a new market in the first two days of launch, crucial to strut your peacock feathers. To the Ringularity backers who know that I would need some cushion room, who love me enough to not want me to stress out, who have the means and know what it means to be a patron of the arts. I am still shaken by this because I am used to being that person to others. I am not used to receiving. Thank you to backers of every tier who supported as they felt it worth to support, or had the means to support. I love you all.

Thanks to those who welcomed me to their show: Kurt Russo of Two Geeks Talking, Patrick Lugo of Kids Comics Unite, Barney Smith of Story Comic. To BICS. Even though I had a really bad show day on account of wind and spent all but 3 hours resetting up and sold $13 worth of stuff for 12 hours of work… I had the experience of being around other artists.

Thank you to Kickstarter. I reeaalllly work on nudges. Most of what you see published of me is because people said: Stephanie, you are welcome here. Kickstarter did that to me, and I showed up with suitcases, first with a public health benefit zine, many anthologies, and now with a full book. Professor Latinx: you are a gem, your letter and campaign promotion and behind the scenes work and commitment to Latinx literature is incredible, unique and heartwarming. Hey: Aaron and I have a story coming out with his book, too soon, LOL! 

Thank you to Andy Schmidt and Alix, who helped me understand printing so that I could set up appropriate reward tiers. I look forward to our next step of printing with them soon. 

After helping some backers update their credit card information so the pledge isn’t dropped, I change gears back to quieter book production, its final touches. 

I got fantastic news in the last day of the campaign, something that I’ve been working on for twenty years, a true passport into another world as a new future is carved. Kickstarter so gets to you, that as the person was telling me of the news, all I was thinking was: yeah, but how is my Kickstarter doing? I couldn’t handle that much emotion, and the shock. But that’s a story for my newsletter, at some point, perhaps.

I reiterate again the meaning of your support: Event Horizon is really so much of who I am in my totality in its themes and expression, with fantastical layered imagination when it’s not. It’s me claiming my place in publishing. The project is a retreat into selfhood and imagined realities, where I am not bound by the challenges of my physical life. Where my name can be spoken, and you hear back different names in its echoes.

If you ever question making art during chaos, do read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. 

Enjoy the music, either the one on this post (see Instagram) (the music I choose is always significant, as is the playlist I made for the book). Or the music you hear in the little things you have going on in your life, like a Kickstarter well received, or a Kickstarter that you put all your heart into, regardless of outcome.