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Hi everyone,

We have exciting news: Howler ships this week. But first...

There are a handful of backers for whom we still don't have mailing addresses. We want our Kickstarter backers to be included in the very first shipment directly from the printer, but we can only ensure this if we get your mailing address within the next few hours. Please send it directly to hello@howlermagazine.com. (In addition to this, please don't forget to fill out the backer survey we sent last month; we would re-send, but Kickstarter only allows us to send it out once.)

We're so excited to get the magazine into your hands. When you've had a chance to read it, please let us know what you think—you can send comments to the same email address, and we'll select a couple to run in the next issue as letters to the editor.

In the meantime, you can preview two stories from the first issue:

Matt Doyle watched more than 50 hours of USMNT game footage dating back nearly 25 years for his piece, What is American Soccer?

And in The Audacity of Hope, Gwendolyn Oxenham considers the new bestselling autobiography by one of the biggest personalities in women's soccer and what it says about the evolution of the sport and the way we think about the stars of the USWNT.

Thank you,

The Howler Team

Dear Friends and Supporters of Howler,

It's been an exciting couple of weeks! The first issue of Howler is now at the printer, and we've begun sharing bits and pieces of the content from issue one (including our debut cover and a story about the on-field evolution of the USMNT) on our blog: whatahowler.tumblr.com. The magazine and other Kickstarter rewards will be arriving in your mailbox by the beginning of October.

For a glimpse of what's inside Howler, scroll down in this email; and if you like what you see, we hope you'll continue to help us spread the word about Howler. We'll be making a big push to increase awareness about the magazine over the coming weeks, and we truly appreciate your support in helping us reach the widest possible audience.

Thank you,
The Howler Team

PS: If you have yet to respond to our Kickstarter survey, please do. We need your answers in order to fulfill the rewards we've promised—in fact the t-shirt vote is so close that we won't know which design we'll be making until more responses come in. Please vote!

Well, we did it! Thanks to your support, Howler reached its funding goal (and then some) by the time our campaign wrapped on Friday. It's been an incredibly exciting month. We appreciate every dollar, every tweet and Facebook post, and every enthusiastic comment and message we received. Thank you.

Now we are turning our attention to finishing the magazine. Issue one will go out the first week of September and we are looking at a date in early September for our launch party in New York. We'll let you know as soon as we finalize the details.

In the meantime, please look out for our backer survey, which will hit your inbox soon. We'll be asking you to tell us your mailing address, shirt size, and other preferences based on the rewards you chose. This is also where you'll get to vote on which special edition t-shirt you'd like us to make.

Over the weekend, we received news of the passing of David Wangerin, author of several foundational works on the history of American soccer. David was one of the first writers we contacted to contribute to Howler. He had written for the English magazine When Saturday Comes from its early days and was excited to write a regular soccer history column for us as well.

Earlier this year David turned in a draft of his first column for Howler and went through several rounds of edits with us. He was an amazingly cheerful and talented writer to work with—a true professional whose passion for the game came through in every turn of phrase. We will miss David, and our thoughts are with his family.

Finally, one of the reasons this update is so long in coming is that George is moving across the country to California. He'll be stopping at the Salt Lake-Seattle game tonight. If any of our backers will be there, he'd love to meet up at the stadium before the game. Drop him a note at george at howlermagazine dot com.

Thank you,
The Howler Team

Hi friends,

If you've backed Howler at a level that gets you a special edition t-shirt, this update is for you. (And if you haven't, there's still time to get one!) Grace and Robert have developed two designs and we hope you'll agree they're both great. One is a little more traditional, the other a bit more fun.

Option one: "Pong"

Option two: "The Goalkeeper"

Once the Kickstarter campaign closes, we'll be sending out a survey in which you'll get to vote on the design you like best, and we'll produce the one that proves more popular. In the meantime, we'd love to know what you think in the comments section below.

Thanks,

The Howler Team