Hey everybody!

It’s time for our annual costume contest, and I’ll be putting up the announcement for that very shortly. But I also have some other news to announce. None of this is going to happen until after the contest, but I wanted to go ahead and put out the alert. So, three things:

1. We’re going to change our name. I don’t know what we’re going to change it to yet, but it will be something more general and without “Halloween” in it. The fact is our readership outgrew Halloween years ago. People all over the world use our designs and other material throughout the year for all kinds of purposes that have nothing to do with Halloween. Our stuff is featured in educational websites and even school programs in Angola, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and many other countries. We’re a year-round resource, and our name needs to reflect that. But fear not: we will still have our annual costume contest at Halloween. In fact maybe we’ll even keep “Take Back Halloween” as the name of the contest.

2. We’re going to overhaul the website. The code hasn’t been touched in almost four years, which is about a thousand years in internet time. Long-time fans of the website know that there are a couple of costumes I’ve been promising to upload but haven’t yet. Know why? Because it’s gotten to the point that I’m afraid to touch anything. So look for a spiffy new website to accompany our spiffy new name (whatever it’s going to be).

3. We’re going to start unveiling new costumes. See #2 above for why this has been delayed. But I’ve got several costume designs in progress in my studio, and once the website is updated I’ll start getting them uploaded. I’m thrilled with these new designs and I hope you will be too.

This is the busy time of year for me at my job—from August to November I’m beyond swamped—which is why none of this can happen until the relative quietude of winter.

And now, on to this year’s contest!

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