What does the future hold for Awesomedude?

[Alien Son]

Mike died without having a clear succession plan for the site. He was working on it, but never completed it.

That means there are several problems to solve. I've got together a small working group of authors and others who expressed an interest in the future and we're working on finding solutions to the problems.

In the meantime the site will continue to be updated, at least until current stories are complete.

For those contributing to the PayPal account, please continue to do so for the time being if you're happy to do that.

At the moment, no email address @awesomedude.com is being monitored, so if you need to contact anyone about the site please use this address: awesomedude@writetome.net.

We'll make further announcements as we are able to.

[Bruin Fisher]

Mike is no longer with us. I'm struggling to come to terms with that. He was a wonderful man, the father of this fantastic site, which has become my writerly home shared with my writerly family under his beneficent patriarchy. I grieve his loss in company with everyone else here.

I hope Awesomedude will continue in some form. I'm sure it's what he would want and it would be fitting tribute to his work.

Bruin

[PeterSJC]

Quote

For those contributing to the PayPal account, please continue to do so for the time being if you're happy to do that.

That's good for all of us to know. I was uncertain whether the PayPal account in Mike's name would still be available for running the site.

John, thank you so much for keeping Awesome Dude going. The stories I have read here—including the ones you have written— have, for many years, been a source of inspiration and joy for me.

All of us, and especially those of you who knew Mike more closely  than I did, may we find comfort in sharing his memory.

Peter

[Alien Son]

Thanks, Peter!

[Merkin]

Hoping some further news concerning the future for AD will appear here soon.
James
 

[Rutabaga]

I am working with Mike's adopted son David to try to get the various accounts that support this site (web hosting, domain registration, forum platform) under our control.  We have had to peel the onion layer by layer, because (at least so far as I can tell from David) Mike did not leave behind any helpful documentation.  The good news is that Alien Son has a full backup of the site on his local disk, and we can recreate it on a new host if it comes to that.  So the stories here will not be lost.  

R

[Alien Son]

Rutabaga has obtained David's agreement to transfer ownership of AwesomeDude to us, and has begun work on bringing that to fruition.

In the meantime, a small group of AD authors has agreed to vet stories (a task previously undertaken personally by Mike), and I'm able to report that we'll soon begin posting new stories again.

~ John

[Richard Lee]

Good news! 
 

[Merkin]

Excellent news!  Will the procedure for submitting new stories remain the same as before?
James

[Alien Son]

Hi, James. Yes, the procedure will essentially be the same.

I've updated the email address for submissions. I'll receive any emails sent to that address, and I'll arrange for one of the group to read the story. If they see a need to, that person may contact the author to discuss edits or amendments. We'll then decide whether to accept or reject the story.

~ John

 

[Oliver]

Great news! Thank you for all the work you're doing as a group!

[IOMfAtS]

It's heartening that a succession plan has been put together. There's a lot of hard work behind the scenes. More power to your collective elbows.