Real talk.

For as much as we are nerds and entrepreneurs, we are parents first and foremost — our children always have and always will come first in our lives.  We have hit a breaking point and have made the extremely difficult decision to take our children out of the U.S. for the foreseeable future.  We are extremely fortunate that, thanks to a decade of hard work and a few lucky breaks, we are able to make this move both safely and legally.

Now, The Rook & The Raven is very much a personal brand – the name itself is literally based on two of our OCs (who, btw, were rival art thieves).  The underlying company (RavenRook Publishing LLC) on the other hand, is very much an American small business.  As much as we would love to be able to pack up shop and bring the whole works with us, the stark reality (delivered to us by both our lawyers AND our accountants) is that doing so is simply impractical for a company of our size (i.e. bigger than a home-based business, but not by much). In fact, this move means that we will have to leave almost everything that we’ve spent the last several years building behind.

That was (and frankly still is) both very overwhelming and very painful, but we’ve decided to do what we do best by nerding out and leaning on our ttrpg tropes to help us through it.  So we’ve decided to think of this as starting a new campaign.

Since we will be, for all intents and purposes, starting over from scratch, we have decided to see this as an opportunity to stretch and grow by bringing in some new players and trying some new things.  In practical terms, this means that we are teaming up with some new people and creating an entirely new company in Europe.  While it will still be nerdy and creative, we’re going to explore some new ideas.

That said, stationery still holds a VERY special place in our hearts, and I don’t know that we could be happy if our new company didn’t do something nerdy notebook related, it just might be a little different than what we’ve done so far.  We’ll be posting a lot more info in the coming weeks and months both here and on our social media channels, and we hope you’ll stick around with us during our transition/evolution.

Now, as for wrapping things up and winding things down in our Chicago workshop, there are a few important things:

1. October 1st is the last day to order made-to-order items!
2. October 15th is the last day to order ready-to-ship items from our Chicago workshop!
3. While supplies last, you will be able to continue to order some refills, accessories, and parts (covers, discs, etc.) that will be shipped directly by one of our partners.
4. We have already started running out of some supplies, so once things go out of stock, they will most likely stay that way
5. If you have on open order, preorder, etc. keep your eyes peeled for an update email that will be coming your way soon with more detailed information about your order

We’ll be posting additional updates here and on socials in the coming weeks.  Thank you for supporting our nerdy little shop <3 We hope you’ll continue to join us on this journey!