Greetings Close Readers,
We have some big (and hopefully exciting) news to share with you. As you know, Bethany and I have been working on opening Goldberry Books for the last several months and (thanks be to God) things have gone well at the outset. We’ve been blessed to have really good foot traffic and a community (here in Concord, NC and among the podcast listeners online) that is jazzed to have the store out in the world. We are so thankful for the way the Close Reads community has helped to make this happen!
As it turns out, along the way some other opportunities have opened up for us that have led to us forming Goldberry Studios, a part of our company that will offer podcasting and book publishing services to other folks. Things like editing, book layout, cover design, podcast production/editing for small publishing companies and self-publishing authors. This in addition to the shop itself, of course. To make this happen, however, it became clear that it wouldn’t be feasible for me to keep working full time for CiRCE and also do all the things Bethany and I are dreaming of doing. So as of January 1 I am no longer an official full time CiRCE employee. This does not mean I won’t keep working for CiRCE it’s just that it will be a bit different. It will be more project oriented. In fact, CiRCE will hire Goldberry Studios to produce podcasts and to help publish books: a true partnership. (I’ll also be helping with the conference still).
Of course, one of my chief concerns in this transition was how it would work with Close Reads (and The Daily Poem). I wanted to make sure the show would go on without any snags! Then as we were discussing all these details, Dad and Matt Bianco came to me with an incredibly generous offer: to let Goldberry have the IP for Close Reads and the Daily Poem as part of the transition. They told me they knew how much work we had put into the show and how much it means to us and wanted us to be able to keep producing the show as part of Goldberry Studios. So that is the plan!
Goldberry Studios will be partnering with CiRCE on the CiRCE podcast network shows and producing Close Reads and The Daily Poem as part of a new suite of podcasts from Goldberry Studios (including a new show for kids coming soon and we have a couple of other ideas we’re planning to launch before too long!). Heidi and Tim (and Sarah-Jane here and there) will continue on with the show as normal and we’ll be recording every Thursday afternoon with episodes going up on Fridays.
This is a true partnership between CiRCE and Goldberry Books/Studios. There’s no conflict. It’s all love, as the kids say (they still say that, right?). Things have never looked brighter for CiRCE and I am so excited to continue being a part of it, even if it looks slightly different on a day-to-day basis. In fact, you’ll be hearing cross-over promotion on the different shows, seeing lots of collaboration, and experiencing the result of what is, in many ways, shared vocation.
You probably have questions, especially if you are a Patreon supporter. All of the money you contribute to our Patreon account will go back into production costs and to paying the people who make the show possible. We’ve got some new sweet show swag coming for each of the tiers and we are planning some additional bonus content for all tiers as well. Full disclosure: this means that the money will be going to the Goldberry bank account before it gets paid to the contributors or to our production partners and not the CiRCE bank account. Just wanted to make that clear. Of course, some of you may currently be contributing specifically because it was going to CiRCE and if that’s the case and you decide you want to cancel your contribution, we totally get it. No hard feelings whatsoever! In fact, you can easily swap that to a regular CiRCE donation here.
Our goal at Goldberry and with Close Reads is to cultivate a community of amateurs in the truest sense: we’re book lovers, enthusiasts. We are not trying to be experts (which, yeah, I know some of you are saying “well, that’s good because you’re not!”🙂). We want to curate contemplative, hospitable, respectful, nerdy conversations about books. We want to share things we love with other people and while we’re at it we want to discover what you love, too! We’re excited about what that might look like in the future.
That’s it for now, but if you have any questions about the future of Close Reads, my role with CiRCE, or anything related to Goldberry please shoot me an email at david@goldberrybooks.com! I’m happy to chat.
Cheers,
David
P.S. Coming later this week: a more detailed reading schedule for the year.
P.P.S. The Play’s the Thing will be still be on the CiRCE podcast network and hosted by Tim with contributions from all the regulars! Goldberry Studios will be the production partner, as with all CiRCE podcast network shows.