A farewell, of sorts

Some news regarding my status as managing editor, and the future of TLM.

Roughly four years ago, James Plowright asked me to help start The Lottery Mafia. Two years later, he asked me to run it. And now, two years after I took over, I will be stepping down as managing editor.

Admittedly, I was reluctant to take over when James asked me. Running any blog, even a niche one, takes a lot of time, and I wasn’t sure I would have enough time to successfully run it. That turned out to be the case, but I made it work. What always kept me going was the dedication I received from the writers. Some came and went fairly quickly, while others remained for quite awhile or remain today. But regardless of their time spent here, they committed to whatever I asked of them.

I’m not sure how good a job I did running TLM. There are things I know I failed at, and a few I could have done better. One thing that I am proud of is the growth of every single writer. When bringing on new writers, I almost never turned away help, regardless of skill or previous experience. If the writer had a passion for the subject, and was willing to commit time each week to the site, that was enough for me. But what has impressed me most is the improvement each writer under me made. Whether it was improving on general mechanics, or finding a consistent and strong voice, the overall improvements were enough to keep me managing the site.

This is, in part, a reason I decided to step away now. Many of our current staff have landed additional writing and editing opportunities at other, bigger blogs and publications. Knowing that they’ve been able to use their work at TLM to move up in this field leads me to believe I did right by them at least.

Beyond this, time constraints have finally caught up to me. Work, and additional writing commitments have left me needing to cut back on other responsibilities, and TLM was one of them.

Fortunately, TLM will not be shutting down. Gabriel Allen, who has been both an editor and writer for some time now, will be taking over as managing editor, today in fact. I’m excited to see what he has in store, and believe he will improve on areas of the site that I neglected. You may see the occasional piece from me, or my name in a weekly roundtable, but that’ll likely be it. It’s Gabe’s site now.

All that said, I want to take every person who had any influence on TLM at all, whether as a writer, editor, or adviser. While I wasn’t planning on singling anyone out, I do want thank James for reaching out to me four years ago, and to Jon Elliot, who has been an editor since the beginning as well.

Anyways, I think that’s it. Readership is a large part of how any blog grows, so to everyone who has read, shared, or commented on any of the work done over the past two years, thank you.