Yes, I get that, at least I get it NOW. But that was what I was going for with the "target="_blank" component -- I wanted the Here's-a-link part to be outside the actual link, so I should have left it out entirely. I should have made it like this (with the introductory text formatted like the rest of my auction description, just using AW's formatting buttons):

Here's a web site devoted to his work: (center)(font face="maiandra gd" size="4" color="blue")(a href="http://www.michaelwhelan.com")Michael Whelan(/a)(/font)(/center)

Thanks for all your help with this. I've saved it all in my HTML tips file.

Sue