Happy Holidaze, Dear Readers!

The holidays are never easy for anyone I know, but they are particularly difficult for the people I know who are out there grieving and healing the loss of a loved one. And it's very hard for the surrounding family and friends to know what to say or do to help. Unfortunately, some surrounding folks choose to ignore the grief because it is uncomfortable for them, because they want people to be healed and happy -- especially at holiday time. Not only is this a sad situation for the grief stricken person, but in my view it is also very sad for the surrounding people who are denying the existence of grief and healing, and therefore, denying their own emotional process.

Here at KotaPress, we hope you find a safe space to explore whatever you might be feeling this season. It is amazing to me how each person processes grief in a very unique way. We hope you find a place here to celebrate your good memories, to share your sad ones, to identify with someone else's process.

In the effort to offer as much support as we can in this online format, we have added so many features to the site for this issue. You will find art and poetry of the heart here in our Journal. This issue we have poets celebrating the Winter Solstice darkness, the lives and deaths of their siblings or children, the aging processes of our parents and ourselves. And the art, as always, captures something visual that expresses those emotions that are beyond words. We also offer a re-vamped look at our Anthology Contests, so now you can find not only guidelines for submission to our free contests, but you can also read about past winners and the readings where they were featured.

In our Loss section this issue, we've added a side-bar, menu item called Articles of Loss. In this area, we will feature articles written by authors from all over the world in the hope that we can get a more global perspective of grief and healing. From my personal experience, I can say that it is a very difficult trek going from the very personal, immediate grief and shock over the death of my baby to the outer world that seems so large, so overwhelming, so unrelenting and inconsiderate. I really needed the connection with people from around the world who had experienced this kind of loss to make my way back into living a somewhat "normal" life again. So we hope you will find some of those connections for yourself in the Articles of Loss.

And we are happy to tell you that our eStore is finally up and running! We hope this eStore will make it easy and convenient for you to get the support materials you need and want from us directly. With the partnership of CCNow, we are able to take orders online using any major credit card. All of this happens right here on our site in a secured setting-- no more hassels with those big chain online stores that so many of you have complained about in your email messages. And because we offer this service thru CCNow, we are even able to tell you that there is a toll-free (for US customers), 24 hours a day, phone number that you can call should you need help with your order! You will get a real person on the other end. We hope this helps, and we look forward to hearing from all of you with the good feedback of how easy and safe this was for you!

Last, but not least, you will find that we now offer Services information thru our Contact section. It's now possible for you to arrange one-on-one or workshop setting consultations that are tailored to your needs. We can offer consultations on anything from "Self-Publishing Made Easy" to "Poetry For Healing." In workshop settings, we can offer time for plenty of writing and sharing exercises along with q & a. Kara is available to work specifically with parents grieving the loss of a child to do some poetry therapy work one-on-one, too. And Hawk is now available to custom design logos, book covers, or web graphics for you. Check out the Services information in the Contact section and give us a call.

All of that said, please remember that we are always open to reading poetry sent to us from you personally. We look forward to hearing from you via email and to reading your poetry. It's our hope that you feel safe enough reading here to then reach out and help others by publishing your works here. We all need to know, and be reminded often, that we are not alone in this world, that inner-personal healing and outer-worldly healing can happen as we connect one person at a time.

Miracles to you,

Kara L.C. Jones, Dakota's Mommy
Editor-In-Chief, KotaPress