Announcing the closure of the-phone-book.com by March 2004

Hello everyone,

December 1st 2003 will be the last edition of the-phone-book.com. If you have always liked the idea
of writing a 150-word story, but never quite got around to submitting one, now is your last chance
(submissions close at midnight GMT on November 1st 2003). By February 2004, the end of our last
edition, the-phone-book.com will have reached the grand old age of three.

The international success of this project is a tribute to our writing community; however, we cannot
leave without also praising our Editor, Ben Stebbing. Every edition he has been faced with thousands
of stories and has had the un-enviable task of whittling them down to the 100-150 we have been able
to fund. We thank him for his fantastic work. We must also show appreciation for the male 'voice of
the-phone-book', David Williams, who has delightfully brought our collection to life each quarter
under the energetic direction of Ben Jones. (For those who haven't guessed already, Fee is the
female voice…).

the-phone-book.com has been a labour of love for all people involved, and we greatly thank Arts
Council England and Arts Council England, North West for their ongoing support and encouragement.
Thanks to them we will be leaving an archive of twelve editions - equalling over a thousand stories,
several exhibitions, an audio CD and an anthology from year one, a vast international community, and
an entire wall of folders containing all submissions from the last three years.

Instead of the usual new edition, March 2004 will be celebrated with an event to launch a new
direction for the creators. After that time the complete archive, mailing list and chatroom will
continue to be available for as long as we are able to sustain them, and we hope our community will
continue to be inspired by wireless technologies as a distribution platform