Holy Moley!

by Rick Blechta

I’m sitting here somewhat in shock. Quite possibly by the end of this month our “little blog that could” will welcome its 1,000,000 guest! That is just remarkable and not many blogs reach this kind of pinnacle.

Way back in June 2006 at the (late, great) Bloody Words Convention in Toronto, Vicki Delany, Charles Benoit, Michael Blair, Alex Brett and I sat around in the hotel bar, talking about getting on the blog bandwagon which was gathering steam at that time.

It seemed like a good idea to help us promote ourselves — promotion being as difficult then as it is now. Vicki did the initial spadework, finding the blogger website, choosing a design and look for our creative and writing the first post.

To say the least, readers were scarce for us for the first few years. In a good month we’d get only 1000 or so pageviews which was pretty darned disheartening. More than once we discussed just abandoning the whole thing, but fortunately that never quite happened. Of those original five, only Vicki (who took a brief holiday from Type M at one point) and I remain. Charles still drops by for a guest spot when I can talk him into it.

Our current roster:

• Barbara arrived in January 2007 (for a brief time before settling in for good in August of 2010).
• Donis arrived 6 months after Barbara. So she’s an 11-year vet.
• John first posted in May 2009
• Frankie Bailey arrived in February of 2011
• Aline first appeared as Peter’s guest in December 2010 before coming onboard in
• Charlotte arrived at the end of April in 2011
• Mario first graced these pages in March 2012
• Sybil joined us in August 2014
• And finally our “newbie”, Marianne first darkened our door in September 2017

Some other long-time members of note:

• Deborah Atkinson — featured in this spot just last week — who came on board with Donis and was with us from July 2007 until August 2010.
• Hannah Dennison, September 2010 to June 2014
• Tom Curran, November 2011 to February 2014
• Peter May, March 2010 to January 2011

This post also has to mention the many guests we’ve hosted over the years (some even became permanent members). Quite often those posts are really interesting and add a lot to the “overall flavor” of Type M. Many thanks to all those who’ve shared their thoughts in our weekend spots over the past 12 years. We all appreciate it a lot!

So here we are. I can scarcely believe our blog has been looked at nearly 1,000,000 times (we’re at 989,352 right now). That is really “some special” as they say in Eastern Canada!

Mostly, though, we all need to say thank you to everyone who has dropped by for a look — and many of you have been watching and reading here for quite a long time. Thanks to all you who’ve commented and joined into what have often developed into some really excellent conversations. (And please feel to weigh in if haven’t yet. We heartily encourage dialogue. It makes the blog that much better — even if we disagree.)

Here’s to the next million!