Weird Tales

- Markets

weirdtalesEstablished: Originally founded in 1923; relaunched spring 1988.
Editors: Stephen H. Segal (editorial director), Ann VanderMeer (fiction editor)

Overview:
Weird Tales has enjoyed a devoted following for many decades as the very first magazine of strange fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Founded in 1923, the pioneering publication introduced the world to such counter-culture icons as Cthulhu the alien monster god and Conan the Barbarian. Weird Tales is well known for launching the careers of great authors like H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, and Robert E. Howard — heck, Tennessee Williams made his first sale here! — not to mention legendary fantasy artists like Virgil Finlay and Margaret Brundage. The magazine’s influence extends through countless areas of pop culture: fiction, certainly, but also rock music, goth style, comic books, gaming… even Stephen King has called Weird Tales a major inspiration.

After the original Weird Tales operation folded in 1954, there were several brief attempts to revive it during the ’60s and ’70s before the resurrection finally achieved full-fledged afterlife as a small-press magazine in 1988. Over the past twenty years, the magazine has featured works by such modern masters as Tanith Lee, Gene Wolfe, Michael Moorcock, Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Ligotti, and more. Today, Weird Tales has recommitted to its original mission — to publish brilliantly strange material that can’t be found elsewhere — even while bringing its unique aesthetics fully into the 21st century. In print and online, we look forward to introducing a new generation of writers, artists, and other storytellers who lure unwary readers into the shadowy places between dream and reality…

Awards and Recognition:
World Fantasy Award 1992: Special Achievement/Professional, editors Scithers & Schweitzer.
Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: many Honorable Mentions over the years.
“Bufo Rex” by Erik Amundsen, WT, #347 was selected for Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2008 and Best American Fantasy 2008.
“The Difficulties of Evolution” by Karen Heuler, WT, #350 was selected for Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2009.
Current 2009 nomination — Hugo Award, Best Semiprozine, editors VanderMeer & Segal.
Current 2009 nomination — Prix Aurora: “All In” by Peter Atwood, WT #351.

Other Items of Interest:
Weird Tales has an active website that publishes original material ranging from fiction (web exclusives as well as print selections) to artwork (e.g. Steven Archer’s year-long Lovecraft series “365 Days of Blasphemous Horrors”) to nonfiction (assorted blog mini-series like the recent two-week-long Sandman 20th-anniversary retrospective). 2008 saw our debut Spam Fiction Contest, wherein writers turned email spam headlines into weird flash fiction. Learn more at our “2008 year in review” web page.

Website:
www.weirdtalesmagazine.com

Information provided by Stephen H. Segal.

2009 Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine Nominees

- Markets

hugoThis week, we’re going to feature the 2009 Hugo Award Nominees for Best Semiprozine.

Best Semiprozine

The semiprozine category received 283 ballots, which is more ballots than Best Related Book, Best Graphic Story, Best Editor (long form), Best Fanzine, and Best Fan Artist received. It only received 5 fewer ballots than the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Fantasy

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fantasy2Fantasy Magazine’s first collection of fiction from their pages, Fantasy,  was published in 2007 by Prime Books.

Table of Contents:

“Goosegirl” by Margaret Ronald
“All the Growing Time” by Becca De La Rosa
“Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home” by Sarah Monette
“Shallot” by Samantha Henderson
“Bone Mother” by Maura McHugh
“The Greats Come A-Callin'” by Lisa Mantchev
“Zombie Lenin” by Ekaterina Sedia
“The Yeti Behind You” by Jeremy Tolbert
“The Salvation Game” by Amanda Downum
“Sugar” by Cat Rambo
“Brother of the Moon” by Holly Phillips

Descended from Darkness: Apex Magazine Vol. I

- Markets

Apex Book Company has announced that they have purchased the final two stories for DESCENDED FROM DARKNESS: APEX MAGAZINE VOL. I. It will contain 25 stories (approximately 90,000 words) and is scheduled for publication in early December.

Table of Contents:

“Hideki and the Gnomes” by Mark Lee Pearson
“Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens” by Peter M. Ball
“Waiting for Jakie” by Barbara Krasnoff
“The Last Science Fiction Writer” by Jamie Todd Rubin
“The Mind of a Pig” by Ekaterina Sedia
“The Puma” by Theodora Goss
“Dark Planet” by Lavie Tidhar
“Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands” by Gord Sellar
“On the Shadow Side of the Beast” by Ruth Nestvold
“Starter House” by Jason Palmer
“A Night at the Empire” by Joy Marchand
“Organ Nell” by Jennifer Pelland
“PLEBISCITE AV3X” by Jason Fischer
“Shaded Streams Run Clearest” by Geoffrey W. Cole
“A Splash of Color” by William T. Vandemark
“Behold: Skowt!” by Jason Heller
“Blakenjel” by Lavie Tidhar
“I Know an Old Lady” by Nathan Rosen
“The Limb Knitter” by Steven Francis Murphy
“Scenting the Dark” by Mary Robinette Kowal
“The Nature of Blood” by George Mann
“In the Seams” by Andrew C. Porter
“These Days” by Katherine Sparrow
“Post Apocalypse” by James Walton Langolf

The Edge of Propinquity

- Markets

Established: 2006edge
Editor: Jennifer Brozek

Overview:
The Edge of Propinquity is a series of short stories from four different authors in four different universes exploring the world that lurks just beneath the surface of everyday life. It is the world of the unexplained, supernatural, magic, horror, duty, responsibility, black humor, conspiracy, unknown heritage and power. Each month, a guest author story is included in the literary offering. New issues are published on the 15th of every month.

Each year we have a new theme. For 2009, the theme is ‘compromise.’ In order to be accepted for publication, stories must fit the webzine’s theme and setting. The setting is a modern day story focusing on a character deep within the hidden world that surrounds mundane society.

Awards and Recognition:
Editor and Preditors 2008 Readers’ Poll: 6th Place Fiction Magazine, 15th Place Publication Editor

Other Items of Interest:
We buy 12 guest author stories a year.

Website:
www.edgeofpropinquity.net

Information provided by Jennifer Brozek.

Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show

- Markets

Established: 2005igms1
Publisher: Orson Scott Card
Editor: Edmund R. Schubert

Overview:
A blend of science fiction and fantasy, emphasizing good old fashioned storytelling; fully illustrated, and published online, bimonthly. Stories range from short-shorts to 20,000 word novelettes, and include hard and soft science fiction, as well as high, urban, and contemporary fantasy. Also publish interviews with established and up-and-coming authors. The stories require a password to access ($2.50 per issue); however the magazine’s website also includes free book, game, and movie reviews, writing advice, and other free monthly columns.

Awards and Recognition:
IGMS stories have been reprinted in various Year’s Best anthologies. In 2008 we saw, “The Tale of Junko and Sayuri” by Peter S. Beagle, which will be reprinted in Rich Horton’s Unplugged (best stories published on-line); “Silent As Dust” by James Maxey will be in Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Fantasy; and “From the Clay of His Heart” by John Brown will be in David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer’s Year’s Best Fantasy. Additionally, six stories published in IGMS in 2008 received Honorable Mentions in Gardner Dozois, and four more received HMs from Ellen Datlow. Previous year’s stories have been nominated for the Locus Award for Best Novella, and multiple stories have been on Locus’s Recommended Reading list and on the Top Ten list for the Million Writers Award.

Other Items of Interest:
Coming soon: IGMS forum.

Website:
www.InterGalacticMedicineShow.com or www.oscigms.com

Information provided by Edmund R. Schubert.

The Best of Abyss & Apex, Volume 1

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abyssapexbestCongratulations to Abyss & Apex and Hadley Rille Books on the release of The Best of Abyss & Apex, Volume One, edited by Wendy S. Delmater.

Table of Contents:

“The Night the Stars Sang Out My Name” by Ken Scholes
“Interfaith” by Lisa Mantchev
“Lament for Titan” by Robin M. Mayhall
“Godspeed, Inc.” by Vincent Miskell
“Night is My House” by Christopher Vera
“Metamorphoses in Amber” by Tony Pi
“City of Beautiful Nonsense” by Justin Howe
“New Spectacles” by Will McIntosh
“The Devil You Know” by Heidi Kneale
“Dear Yourself” by Yoon Ha Lee
“Nomad” by Karl Bunker
“Stories of the Alien Invasion” by Manek Mistry
“A Clockwork Break” by Shawn Scarber
“The Knife” by Jason L. Corner
“Hour by Hour” by Lindsay Duncan
“The Watchers” by Patricia Kelly
“In The Season Of Blue Storms” by Jude-Marie Green
“A Season With The Geese” by Rachel Swirsky
“Goddess” by Jon Hansen
“Quantum Semantics” by Norman Ball
“When Maxwell’s Demon Met Schrödinger’s Cat” by Jack Hillman
“Fading Away” by Jay Lake
“The Man Behind the Curtain” by Joseph Paul Haines
“God’s Guitar” by Justin Stanchfield
“Twelve Dancing Daughters” by Pam McNew
“Unicorn’s Rest” by Jill Knowles
“The First Stranger” by Kristine Ong Muslim
“The Sea a Deeper Black” by Tim Pratt
“Museum Beetles” by Simon Kewin
“Four-Dimensional Chess” by Robert Saunders
“Wikihistory” by Desmond Warzel

Black Gate

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Established: 2001blackgate
Editor: John O’Neill

Overview:
Black Gate publishes epic fantasy fiction at all lengths, including novel excerpts, as well as articles, and reviews. We’re looking for adventure-oriented fantasy fiction suitable for all ages, as long as it is well-written and original.

The magazine publishes all kinds of fantasy. Nobody wants to open up a magazine, especially a big magazine like Black Gate at 224 pages, and read only one kind of fantasy, so we try to cover everything. Do we have a focus? Yes – about 70% of what we publish is adventure-oriented fantasy. Does that mean a lot of sword fights in fantasy? No. It means that we’re looking for stories with a lot of dramatic tension. A good, rousing climax. Something based on the basic rules set down by Aristotle two thousand years ago, the three acts of drama. You’ve got to have an introduction, introduce your characters. You’ve got to get your characters to a point where your audience is convinced they cannot succeed. And then they have to succeed.

We want fiction with a more exotic setting. Most of what we see has a very familiar setting. Generic Middle Ages. It starts off in a tavern with a ranger and a bard and a half-orc having a conversation. I want more originality than that. You need to grab the reader on the very first page. It’s tough to do that with character, because character needs to be developed. It’s tough to do that with plot, because any plot that’s simple enough to grab me on the first page probably isn’t complex enough to maintain my attention. It’s easy to with the setting. If you’ve got an innovative, dynamic setting, then you’ve got my attention on the first page. You’ve got my reader’s attention, and that works.

Awards and Recognition:
“Awakening” by Judith Berman was nominated for the Nebula and several stories have been reprinted in Year’s Best anthologies.

Website:
www.blackgate.com

Information provided by John O’Neill

The storySouth Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2008

- Neil Clarke

storysouthThe storySouth Million Writers Award is an annual award that recognizes the best online fiction regardless of genre. The list of Notable Stories of 2008 has been posted and the final ballot of ten will be posted on May 15th.

The following notable stories from semiprozines are available free for your reading pleasure:

Abyss & Apex

Apex Magazine

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Clarkesword Magazine

Fantasy Magazine

Strange Horizons

Beneath Ceaseless Skies was also singled out as runner up in the Best New Online Magazine category.