This will be a short post.

Maybe my journey into parenthood has caused me to appreciate brevity and efficiency. Maybe I don’t need much space to say what I need to say. But I am excited to publish this blog entry with celebration on my mind.

This is my 400th post for Telling the Story. It also marks more than five years since I launched the site.

I started the blog with two goals. For my own ambitions, I wanted to write more, challenging myself to produce two posts a week of narrative strength and thematic clarity. More importantly, I wanted to develop and contribute to a climate of inspiration and collaboration among my fellow journalists. I aimed – and still aim – to encourage us to think big about this profession. In my introductory post, the Storyteller’s Manifesto, I wrote, “I am excited to tackle the concept of storytelling. It is the one part of journalism that is not going anywhere.”

That hasn’t changed five years later, even as so much has.

In the half-decade since I launched Telling the Story, I have conducted nearly 60 podcasts, co-hosted a sold-out storytelling workshop in Atlanta, and written a how-to book for solo video journalists. The blog has remained a constant, and I have developed some of my most rewarding relationships in the field because of it.

So let me say: THANK YOU.

I appreciate the readership, feedback, e-mail subscriptions, podcast suggestions, and all of the interactions we’ve had through the blog. And I’m not going anywhere. The blog and podcast will continue to evolve through 2018 and beyond.

Thanks again. And cheers to five fulfilling years.

The Solo Video Journalist is available for purchase. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the publisher’s web site.

Matt Pearl is the author of the Telling the Story blog and podcast. Feel free to comment below or e-mail Matt at matt@tellingthestoryblog.com. You can also follow Matt on Facebook and Twitter.