Monday, June 9, 2025

And now, presenting....

 

Our Premiere Fall 2020 issue - in print!

- Available September, 2025 - 

Greetings, everyone - Happy Summerween!

     I’d like to start by giving my deepest thanks to you all for your ongoing love and support of Autumn Brilliance magazine. You’re all a wonderful bunch of humans that I’ve come to know and love, and you’ve made my heart so happy!

     Please allow me a bit of preamble – this is a tad lengthy, so grab that cuppa tea, get comfie, and read on.

     This year marks our fifth anniversary of bringing you what we genuinely believe is the best in Halloween art. It’s been a privilege to do, and five years is a true milestone that amazes me. What began as a simple idea has taken off in the most special and incredible way, where I get to work with the best Halloween artists in the whole entire world… so yes, it really has become a dream come true. Like most of you, I incorporate Halloween into my everyday existence, so creating this magazine has enhanced my overall happiness a thousandfold!

     Our first issue – Premiere Fall 2020 – was released as a digital-only magazine, meaning, it was not in print form, but one that was viewable on all electronic devices such as smart phones and tablets. Our reasoning for this decision was, we thought going fully digital was the most modern, up to date thing to do – limiting our carbon footprint. We thought by offering it for free would help, but, well, it kind of, sort of did. Only later did we fully realize our unintentional mistake: that a visually vibrant arts magazine such as this needs to be in a more concrete form. Because this magazine has become known as a series of collector’s items to keep, the fact that our very first issue was absent became a conundrum. If you have each successive printed issue (Fall 2021-2024), there is a glaring omission, isn’t there?  

     Over the course of the past five years, we have fielded many, many queries and requests both online, via email and during personal appearances at live shows in regard to exactly when we would finally be releasing the Fall 2020 issue in print. Our reply was often met with a sense of disappointment that usually went like this:

 “But I would love to be able to hold a full color magazine in my hands”

“I prefer to be able to thumb through the pages to see all the artwork”  

“Seeing it on a video screen is totally different and not as good as an actual magazine”

     I totally understand that! Those being the most common complaints made us realize we had to do something about it. We hated being a disappointment and turning people away, so this year, we have finally, FINALLY rectified this situation… and come Fall 2025, we will proudly present to you the printed version of Autumn Brilliance’s premiere. Hope you’ll forgive us… so sorry it took so long!

     The wonderful thing about this issue is you get to see a wide array of the first artists who helped put us on the map – most notably our very first Spotlight Profile Artist, the incredible LeeAnn Kress of Charmed Confections, who is world-renown for her fun and fabulous original art dolls and sweet delights.

     Initially I thought that putting this magazine into printed form would be simple – but, yikes, was I in for a rude surprise. The Fall 2020 edition was created with what I’ll call an ancient graphics publishing program that no longer exists! Here I was, thinking it would have been a snap to transfer it over into my current publishing programs (Affinity Publisher/Canva/Adobe Elements). But noooooo! Nothing was compatible with this old program, so I had to start completely from scratch by dismantling the entire magazine, bit by bit, retouching, reworking, resaving each and every image and then restructuring the magazine into its finished state. No easy feat, it took me from February until June to do this because the overall look really needed a fresh updating from its rather simple original form. I think you’ll see what I mean when you see the finished product.

     But because of the fact that it took me such a long time to redo the magazine (remember, I’m an office of one, doing it all by myself from my home office studio), that means there is no other “new” magazine this season – there was no time to get them both done in time for fall release. However, just wait until next year’s issue, there is an avalanche of great artistry to be featured in it.

     So, without any further ado, we’d like to present to you, our Fall 2020 issue – available on September 2025, at all the usual places: online via our website (autumnbrilliancemagazine.com, which takes you to our Etsy store to order copies of the magazine) and in person at Bewitching Peddlers of Halloween in Marshall, Michigan on September 27th..

    Again, thank you so much for your ongoing support. All of your comments, compliments, suggestions and constructive criticisms have been appreciated so very much. We hope to see you at the BPoH show in September!