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The announcement in the 14 Feb 2001 Inklings confirmed the sad news: the February 14th issue would be the last issue. XLibris, which last year bought Inkspot/Inklings from founder and executive editor Debbie Ridpath Ohi, decided to pull the plug. As staff, I received word the day before that, due to severe budget cuts, Xlibris decided to suspend all work on the Inkspot website. Inkspot's in-house staff (Kennerly Clay, Pam Hansell, and Katie Fine) were laid off and telecommuting staff's last day was Tuesday, February 13th. We have been assured that all invoices for work through February 13 2001 WILL be paid. There's a FAQ on Debbie's site that outlines the gory details. In early August 2001, a little more than a year after Debbie announced that Inkspot was "joining forces" with Xlibris and a little less than six months after Xlibris shut down Inkspot and Inklings, the Inkspot archives that Xlibris was keeping online ("Xlibris is not planning to shut down Inkspot. Instead, we are meeting with various interested parties who would like to become Inkspot’s new partner. In the meantime, the site will remain at its current location, unchanged.") were also taken offline. http://www.inkspot.com now takes you to the Xlibris site. Oh, sad day, sad fact that Inkspot is well and truly gone from this world. I remember spring 1995 when Debbie posted a link in misc.writing to her first page of what became Inkspot -- a list of links to resources for children's writers. I'd tracked that post down in one of my mail folders once for her but lost it again. Next time I'll blow it up to poster size for her wall. I worked on Inkspot because of Debbie not because of the money. Heck, Xlibris owes me $2820 from a stack of invoices I submitted in November 2000 -- count the months late that payment is. I never bothered submitting an invoice after that. If they hadn't paid the old one, what made me think they'd pay a new? What I got back from Debbie and Inkspot, though, was priceless. Years from now when I wander around in my inkspot.com block jacket, folks will say, "Hey. That was such a cool site." It was. Farewell to one of the best places I ever hung my hat, one of the nicest groups of people working as "writers helping writers," a great group of readers and contributors and to Debbie Ridpath Ohi, one of THE NICEST PEOPLE I'VE EVER NOT MET.* Thanks, Debbie. Sal * FINALLY met Debbie in October 2004 in Toronto, where she was living and where I was visiting for Bouchercon 2004. |