[REL] Prepare for 0.9.6 release

[drewejohnson]

Want to get support for newer python versions out the door in a smaller release. Then, larger features like those requested in issues can be picked up

• PR fits the project scope
• Code to be committed is DRY and matches the code style of the project
• New and/or changed features are well documented and have adequate testing
• For first-time contributors, you have included your attribution in docs/contributors.rst

[drewejohnson]

Looking through our versioning policy, since we dropped python 3.7, that feels like a breaking change, which merits a larger bump (0.9.5 -> 0.10.0 not 0.9.6)

We have some language in our docs about what will happen for 0.10.0 release, back from a more optimistic time. I'm going to polish those up and make a slightly related PR