diff --git a/scripts/release-notes.py b/scripts/release-notes.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..1444d7a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/release-notes.py
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+# coding=UTF-8
+
+# Generate the fragment used to make email release announcements
+# usage: release-notes.py 0.2.6
+
+import os
+import sys
+import urllib
+import lxml.html
+
+import subprocess
+
+
+response = urllib.urlopen('https://mitogen.networkgenomics.com/changelog.html')
+tree = lxml.html.parse(response)
+
+prefix = 'v' + sys.argv[1].replace('.', '-')
+
+for elem in tree.getroot().cssselect('div.section[id]'):
+    if elem.attrib['id'].startswith(prefix):
+        break
+else:
+    print('cant find')
+
+
+
+for child in tree.getroot().cssselect('body > *'):
+    child.getparent().remove(child)
+
+body, = tree.getroot().cssselect('body')
+body.append(elem)
+
+proc = subprocess.Popen(
+    args=['w3m', '-T', 'text/html', '-dump', '-cols', '72'],
+    stdin=subprocess.PIPE,
+    stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
+)
+
+stdout, _ = proc.communicate(input=(lxml.html.tostring(tree)))
+stdout = stdout.decode('UTF-8')
+stdout = stdout.translate({
+    ord(u'¶'): None,
+    ord(u'•'): ord(u'*'),
+    ord(u'’'): ord(u"'"),
+    ord(u'“'): ord(u'"'),
+    ord(u'”'): ord(u'"'),
+})
+print(stdout)