25 years ago I joined this site. That's more than half my life.
I'm still here, even though many of the friends, rivals, and acquaintances I met on this site are not. I often think what this site used to be in the pre-wikipedia days; a wild overgrown garden full of facts, opinions, nonsense, lies, delusions, and sometimes art. For a while it was my laboratory to try out new things.
I hope I've grown as a writer since those long ago days. I have a little book of short stories out from Neon Hemlock Press in October. It's called Call and Response. Publishers Weekly seemed to like it! I don't know if I would have written "Serving Fish" without first writing Submerged for the audience here. And maybe "Femme and Sundance" would never have existed if I hadn't explored concepts that I explored first in It's the Season for Graves Cracking: The 2006 Quest for Fear. Bitriot, If you're out there, I owe you a debt for that.
I am so very glad this place was here for me exactly when I needed it.