diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index 0496603e2c0..ff921de69eb 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -1,11 +1,9 @@
 # Change Log
 
-## Unreleased
+## 24.1.0
 
 ### Highlights
 
-<!-- Include any especially major or disruptive changes here -->
-
 This release introduces the new 2024 stable style (#4106), stabilizing the following
 changes:
 
@@ -44,8 +42,6 @@ year's stable style.
 
 ### Stable style
 
-<!-- Changes that affect Black's stable style -->
-
 Several bug fixes were made in features that are moved to the stable style in this
 release:
 
@@ -59,14 +55,12 @@ release:
 
 ### Preview style
 
-<!-- Changes that affect Black's preview style -->
-
 - Add `--unstable` style, covering preview features that have known problems that would
   block them from going into the stable style. Also add the `--enable-unstable-feature`
   flag; for example, use
   `--enable-unstable-feature hug_parens_with_braces_and_square_brackets` to apply this
-  preview style throughout 2024, even if a later Black release downgrades the feature to
-  unstable (#4096)
+  preview feature throughout 2024, even if a later Black release downgrades the feature
+  to unstable (#4096)
 - Format module docstrings the same as class and function docstrings (#4095)
 - Fix crash when using a walrus in a dictionary (#4155)
 - Fix unnecessary parentheses when wrapping long dicts (#4135)
@@ -74,48 +68,18 @@ release:
 
 ### Configuration
 
-<!-- Changes to how Black can be configured -->
-
-- Print warning when toml config contains an invalid key (#4165)
-- Fix symlink handling, properly catch and ignore symlinks that point outside of root
-  (#4161)
+- Print warning when configuration in `pyproject.toml` contains an invalid key (#4165)
+- Fix symlink handling, properly ignoring symlinks that point outside of root (#4161)
 - Fix cache mtime logic that resulted in false positive cache hits (#4128)
 - Remove the long-deprecated `--experimental-string-processing` flag. This feature can
   currently be enabled with `--preview --enable-unstable-feature string_processing`.
   (#4096)
 
-### Packaging
-
-<!-- Changes to how Black is packaged, such as dependency requirements -->
-
-### Parser
-
-<!-- Changes to the parser or to version autodetection -->
-
-### Performance
-
-<!-- Changes that improve Black's performance. -->
-
-### Output
-
-<!-- Changes to Black's terminal output and error messages -->
-
-### _Blackd_
-
-<!-- Changes to blackd -->
-
 ### Integrations
 
-<!-- For example, Docker, GitHub Actions, pre-commit, editors -->
-
 - Revert the change to run Black's pre-commit integration only on specific git hooks
   (#3940) for better compatibility with older versions of pre-commit (#4137)
 
-### Documentation
-
-<!-- Major changes to documentation and policies. Small docs changes
-     don't need a changelog entry. -->
-
 ## 23.12.1
 
 ### Packaging
diff --git a/docs/integrations/source_version_control.md b/docs/integrations/source_version_control.md
index 3b895193941..259c1c1eaf3 100644
--- a/docs/integrations/source_version_control.md
+++ b/docs/integrations/source_version_control.md
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Use [pre-commit](https://pre-commit.com/). Once you
 repos:
   # Using this mirror lets us use mypyc-compiled black, which is about 2x faster
   - repo: https://github.com/psf/black-pre-commit-mirror
-    rev: 23.12.1
+    rev: 24.1.0
     hooks:
       - id: black
         # It is recommended to specify the latest version of Python
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ include Jupyter Notebooks. To use this hook, simply replace the hook's `id: blac
 repos:
   # Using this mirror lets us use mypyc-compiled black, which is about 2x faster
   - repo: https://github.com/psf/black-pre-commit-mirror
-    rev: 23.12.1
+    rev: 24.1.0
     hooks:
       - id: black-jupyter
         # It is recommended to specify the latest version of Python
diff --git a/docs/usage_and_configuration/the_basics.md b/docs/usage_and_configuration/the_basics.md
index a42e093155b..562fd7d5905 100644
--- a/docs/usage_and_configuration/the_basics.md
+++ b/docs/usage_and_configuration/the_basics.md
@@ -266,8 +266,8 @@ configuration file for consistent results across environments.
 
 ```console
 $ black --version
-black, 23.12.1 (compiled: yes)
-$ black --required-version 23.12.1 -c "format = 'this'"
+black, 24.1.0 (compiled: yes)
+$ black --required-version 24.1.0 -c "format = 'this'"
 format = "this"
 $ black --required-version 31.5b2 -c "still = 'beta?!'"
 Oh no! 💥 💔 💥 The required version does not match the running version!
@@ -363,7 +363,7 @@ You can check the version of _Black_ you have installed using the `--version` fl
 
 ```console
 $ black --version
-black, 23.12.1
+black, 24.1.0
 ```
 
 #### `--config`
diff --git a/scripts/release.py b/scripts/release.py
index d588429c2d3..c5336506396 100755
--- a/scripts/release.py
+++ b/scripts/release.py
@@ -169,7 +169,9 @@ def get_next_version(self) -> str:
         calver_parts = base_calver.split(".")
         base_calver = f"{calver_parts[0]}.{int(calver_parts[1])}"  # Remove leading 0
         git_tags = get_git_tags()
-        same_month_releases = [t for t in git_tags if t.startswith(base_calver)]
+        same_month_releases = [
+            t for t in git_tags if t.startswith(base_calver) and "a" not in t
+        ]
         if len(same_month_releases) < 1:
             return f"{base_calver}.0"
         same_month_version = same_month_releases[-1].split(".", 2)[-1]