Welcome to the November issue of Net Author's E2K.

This month, Santa Barbara hosted the 2002 Digital Literature Festival, the highlight of which was this year's presentation of the Independent e-Book Awards. Net Author is pleased to announce that our e-zine, E2K, has won the Reader's Choice Favorite E-zine award. We are, quite frankly, tickled almost beyond words. It would, of course, never do for a writer to be wordless, so let us simply say that we place tremendous value on you, our readers, and on the Net Author community. We are deeply appreciative of your recognition and encouragement, and will continue to work toward producing the highest quality writers' resource and literature online.

The holiday season is about to kick off with its usual mix of chaos and magic, and as we did last year, Net Author is going to use the month of December to enjoy a bit of down time. We've made some major changes this year, and had our fair share of accomplishments; now is the time for us to regroup and gear toward the next year. So, as we spend time with our own friends and families in celebration of all that's wonderful about the coming time of year, we take this quiet moment to wish you the very best that the season has to offer. May your holidays be filled with peace and joy, may you finally work through that troublesome paragraph, and may you find more acceptances than rejections in your mailbox.

Keep in mind that while we won't be publishing in December, we'll still be accepting and replying to submissions. We've gotten a little behind in the past month, so we'll also use the coming weeks to catch up and clear our desks. Having said that, however, we'd like to especially encourage those of you who write fiction and creative nonfiction; don't wait for the new year and those infamous new year resolutions to begin submitting your work. Net Author has been fortunate to receive a fair amount of poetry over the past year so that we've acquired a small cache of exciting poems, but as you can see by this issue, we've garnered far fewer fiction and creative nonfiction submissions. Check our submission guidelines and read through the previous issues to get a sense of what we're looking for, then query us. After all, the worst that can happen is that we say "no," yes?

In this month's issue, Hasmita Chandler makes her debut with an excellent article giving you a few of the basics about writing for online publication. John Haynes returns to us with "While Africa Dies," and Felice Austin joins the ranks of Net Author-published poets with her poem, "Gatsby." James Hall has become a familiar and much-welcome name in our journal, and you'll enjoy reading the provocative poetry of Michael Salinger. Our own Julia Brown takes a look at the latest in print, and our Managing Director indulges in a momentary musing over the progress of one of his own creations.

• Editorial: From the Publisher's Desk, by Robert Marcom, Publisher
• Poetry: "While Africa Dies" by John V. Haynes
• Poetry: "Gatsby" by Felice Austin
• Poetry: "Three Koans and a Fountain" by James A. Hall
• Poetry: "Time Contracts" by Michael Salinger
• Feature: "Writing for the Web" by Hasmita Chandler
• Feature: Book Review. Review of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones by Julia Brown, Staff Writer