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It's been almost nine years since Strange Horizons launched.

During that time we've published over four hundred stories, as well as a great deal of poetry, reviews, articles, art, columns, and other material. We've still never missed a week, except for the week at the end of each year that we take off.

The magazine has twice been nominated for a Hugo award. Stories we've published have been reprinted in a variety of Year's Best anthologies, and have appeared on major award shortlists. Our poetry also gets nominated for awards.

Twice in the past couple of weeks, friends of mine have been surprised to learn that we have about thirty staff members, all volunteers. The magazine is a labor of love, one that the remarkably dedicated staff has put an amazing amount of work into for a long time.

Once a year, we ask the community for donations. We still run on a shoestring budget: we pay fiction writers what passes for pro rates in our field, and we pay token payments for some other departments, and we pay for web hosting, and we pay for a tea party at WisCon each year; and those areas are pretty much where all our money goes. (Well, and this year we may spend some money on redesigning the site.)

This year, we're asking for $7000 in donations. We've received a little over $1200 so far. If you'd like to donate money, stop by our 2009 fund drive page. (If you stopped by before and found the PayPal button broken, try again; it should be fixed now.)

As always, donating will make you eligible for the various fabulous prizes that lots of cool people have donated as fund-drive premiums. Signed books! Art! Magazine subscriptions! And if you donate $50 or more, you get an SH mug or T-shirt, too. (I'm personally especially fond of the mugs.)

If donating money isn't your thing, though, there are other things you can do. See next entry.