This has been a rough year for Black Gate. On January 16 we lost Howard Andrew Jones, who created this site virtually single-handedly. Black Gate had existed as a print magazine since November 2000, and I’d launched the website a few months earlier, but it was a pretty flimsy affair. Not much more than a place to sell subscriptions, and host our submissions page and occasional guest articles by Rich Horton and James Enge.

Howard dreamed of something vastly more ambitious — creating the premier site for heroic fantasy on the internet, with daily content from a round robin of some of its best writers. It was impossible, of course. Our overworked staff was already struggling to keep the magazine alive, and I had no time — and certainly no budget! — to spend on a project that didn’t address the fact that I was losing $10,000 every issue.

Howard ignored these minor problems, and all on his own assembled a crack team of bloggers including Bill Ward, David Soyka, Scott Oden, James Enge, EE Knight, and Ryan Harvey. By November of 2008 he launched the Black Gate blog, and for the last seventeen years we’ve produced at least one article every day. In 2016, we won and Alfie Award and a World Fantasy Award, and crossed 2 million page views/month.

Howard has been the heart and soul of Black Gate for those seventeen years. It came into being through his vision and his tireless energy, and losing him was a major blow to the whole team.

On June 16 2025 we suffered another loss when Rodger Turner passed away. I’ve known Rodger for over 45 years. He was the co-owner of The House of Speculative Fiction, the best bookstore in my hometown of Ottawa, Canada, and the co-chair of the first World Fantasy Convention I ever attended, in Ottawa in 1984. More importantly, he was the webmaster of my first website, SF Site, in 1997, and he kept the site going for over 25 years after I left to start Black Gate.

Suffering two back-to-back losses stirred up a lot of memories and regrets for me. It reminded me of what we set out to do nearly 40 years ago with SF Site, and five years later with Black Gate. It brought back Howard’s ambition to create an enduring online publication that celebrates the very best of fantasy, and Rodger’s determination to do the same for science fiction. And it forced me the dwell on all the ways we’ve fallen short of the lofty goals of those two great dreamers.

For the first decade of Black Gate‘s existence, and in the short years I toiled alongside Rodger to earn recognition and eyeballs for SF Site, I worked hard to bring their joint visions to life. Through sweat and sacrifice I grew both websites, zealously watching our traffic inch upward. But gradually I discovered that there was something much more valuable hiding under all those traffic metrics.

That thing, of course, is community. It is, in the vernacular of our genre, found family. Howard and Rodger left me a much greater gift than site traffic. In striving to honor their vision, I have — perhaps accidently — created a place where those who love reading can gather to discuss the novels, stories, authors and artists they cherish.

The things I treasure now are the comments from our readers, and the way that, every single day, they help me find joy in this rich universe of imagination we call genre fiction.

So I want to take a moment to thank all the BG readers who take time out of their day to visit our small site. and take part in the discussions on our pages. Those that drop in with a book suggestion, a thoughtful comment, an encouraging word.

Speaking on behalf of everyone who takes time to craft an article at Black Gate, it means a lot. I would like to wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Continue being excellent — it’s what you’re good at.