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Fellow Authors and Readers;
Fifteen years ago, August Christopher became disenchanted with his favorite stories being on websites that were covered in banner ads. He decided to do something about it, so he used his own funds to finance the start of what would become the Fort Family. The project started with two sites and a reader's forum - Gary's Garden, Jeff's Fort, and the forums that August insisted on naming after Jeff's site. I was one of the very first people invited to the forum, and within a few days August, Gary, and Jeff conspired to drag my original site, ACAnnex.us, into the fold. With that move, the basis of what is known to this day as the Fort Family began.
Unfortunately, life happens, and August passed on. Instead of giving up, we all banded together and worked to continue the legacy of his idea. We began accepting donations, making up for any difference out of our own pockets. No matter what it would take, it was decided that there would never be advertising on any Fort Family site. During all of this, the author running the Corner Cafe had to move on due to real life issues, and I took over the Cafe with the assistance of Akeentia, The Story Lover, and Jeff P. While no longer running the Annex, I have been involved in ensuring that it is managed by authors who wish to keep its legacy alive.
As will happen with any site that lasts this long, sooner or later it becomes more work to do than any one person can handle. The Fort Family is no exception, but once again we didn't follow the normal pattern of giving up or converting to Wordpress. Instead, in the last two years we have migrated all of our story archives and current writings to a custom story management software developed by our own Akeentia. Over the years, Akeentia has been responsible for the look and feel of the main forums and various elements of the websites, so there wasn't a second thought about using his latest creation. Thanks to his skill, the sites all now share navigation that is easy to use on both mobile and desktop, while reducing the work needed to run them, thereby giving us more time to write and follow other projects.
There is another side effect of the new site software... and that is attributed to the authors and readers of the Cafe. While all sites have seen growth, I can only vouch for what I can see on this site, and thanks to all of you there has been a steady 5% average growth in story readership! Thanks to the authors giving us amazing stories, along with the readers who find them as fast as they are posted, the Cafe and other Fort Family Sites are able to continue the legacy of August's dream.
I wish to extend a heartfelt thank-you to each and every author and reader on the Cafe for their support over the years, and I look forward to many more years of high-quality reading from some of the best authors on the Internet!
Thank you one and all;
ACFan