Hello dear friends,
Greetings from a quarantined home office!
I hope you are all doing well and staying safe. I have been sheltered-in-place at home since March 13. What we thought was going to be a two-week home retreat and remote teaching, has now turned into a completely remote teaching through the end of the school year!
This has been extremely disruptive for the lives of countless billions of people worldwide. Yet, from a long-term view, it is in our best interest. COVID-19 is extremely contagious. I already know people who have died of it, as well as seven who have it and are in isolation.
Yet, as I always do when life does not go our way: I look at the silver lining.
Just a couple of weeks before the quarantine, I had sent to print Issues CXXI and CXXII. After several check-ins and last minute changes, I received the “go-ahead” to print the run. Then, I made the mistake of not heading straight to our printer to pick them up on March 13. The printer was compelled to shut down the next business day, as have most non-essential businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…
No one else to blame but me: c’est la vie.
However, the silver lining is the fact that I have been homebound since then. I teach remotely to my 100+ students every morning between 900am-1200pm. Then, after lunch with David, who has also been working remotely since March 13, I walk into my home office and start working on EUROHISTORY. I have a lot of catching up to do!
All the issues for 2019 are now finished – two printed, which I cannot retrieve yet; two ready to print the moment our printer in Berkeley opens for business.
Furthermore, I have been working on Issue CXXV, Volume 23.1 – Spring 2020…it is almost finished. It will go to print before renewals come in and be ready too mail as we begin processing 2020 renewals!
I got caught up with the magazine – and the respective issues look amazing. A lot has happened royalty-wise in 2019, and we have not only covered the major royal events of the year, but our excellent roster of contributing authors have done a fantastic job sending us articles for publication. To all our writers (Katrina Warne, Seth B. Leonard, Ilana D. Miller, Alex Borg, Marianne van Dam, Coryne Hall, Justin Vovk, and Marlene Eilers Koenig), our photographers (Marianne van Dam and Frédéric de Natal), our invaluable researchers (Ilana D. Miller, Katie Tice, Dr. Mary Houck, Edgar Klein), our royal friends who supply us with private photos and unique access, and my invaluable husband David who volunteers his time to help me make EUROHISTORY appealing…THANK YOU!
You all make this possible, even and in spite of my lackadaisical and quirky character. I am trying to be better about deadlines and such…but culturally and inspirationally, sometimes it is a real challenge. I can only write when I get inspired! Your support of EUROHISTORY and its mission is something that I truly cherish and for which I am most grateful.
We are going to upload PDF versions of the 2019 Eurohistory Issues for SUBSCRIBERS to download!
If you email us, we can send you a link for you to download your copy. I am doing this not because you will not get a printed/physical copy (which you will), but to provide you with reading material while we are all sheltered and socially-distanced at home.
You will receive an email from WETRANSFER.COM along with a link. Clicking on the link will take you to their website and there the download of the issue will begin. From my end, I can see who has downloaded their copy of EUROHISTORY (as well as how many times the download is being done!). These links are only going to those who paid for their 2019 subscriptions…please respect copyright and do not share the PDFs. I trust that you will be mindful of the enormous amount of work that all of us at EUROHISTORY put into the magazine and the cost and work it incurs.
If you do not know if we have your email, PLEASE contact me at [email protected] and I will send you the link for your download!
Once businesses open here, I will proceed with retrieving Issues CXXI and CXXII from our printer, and with sending Issues CXXIII and CXXIV to print. The download is NOT a replacement of the printed issue for which you paid.
Personally, I prefer printed reading material. Yet, as several subscribers told me over the last few days, many of you use electronic reading devices – especially in our present circumstances. Hence, following the advice of these dedicated subscribers, I made the decision to release PDFs of the 2019 EUROHISTORY Issues.
I stand here alone and let you know that it is no one’s fault but mine that the magazine got behind. I could tell you myriad reasons why (and, trust me when I tell you our family life is challenging due to our sons’ traumas and having to be fully invested in raising little Ezra, plus dealing with my health issues). Yet, in the end, I owe you the magazine coming out on time. So, hopefully, I will be able to not disappoint moving forward. I am so thankful for your support of all of the people behind EUROHISTORY that make this publication possible. It has been my joy, and the delight of the ERHJ’s contributors, to continue to keep the European Royal History Journal going full steam ahead.
I hope you like the issues, I really do!
Stay well and stay safe.
Best wishes,
Arturo Beéche
PS: AGAIN, if you are a paid subscriber of EUROHISTORY and you want to get the electronic issues for 2019, email me at [email protected]
