We just sent Backwards City #4 off to the printer, which is why everything suddenly looks so nice and aquamarine around here. (Also why I hardly got any sleep last night.)

Regular blogging will resume tomorrow. Today I want to highlight a few of the writers and artists in the upcoming issue of Backwards City, called "our best issue" just the other day by no less a personage than Don Ezra Cruz. (Many of these wonderful people have wonderful Web sites and blogs, which you can find under the "Our Writers" tab on the linkbar.)

To tide you over until the print issue arrives, I've put some excerpts up at the usual place, and I hope you'll take a look:

* Michael Colello's amazing cover, Landscape, in full-color and unadulterated;
* All three pages of Will Dinski's comic "The Midwestern Artist," and just a taste of Tom K's "100,000 Miles";
* The full-text of three short fiction pieces from the issue, Michael Stigman's "We Are Hot Boyz^TM: Seven Memos", Roy Kesey's "Pájaro Loco," and Shellie Zacharia's "Parade of Champions";
* Six poems from the issue, by Jeremy Aufrance, Renee Wells, Kristy Bowen, Chet Corey, and Vanessa Mancinelli;
* and a preview of the first ever Backwards City Chapbook, The Beekeeper's Departure by Jennifer Chapis.

Subscribers will be getting their copies of the issue in about five weeks. People who aren't subscribers should really become such.