Semiprozine.org

The July issue of Ansible (their 264th issue) is now available online.

The July issue of Clarkesworld Magazine is now available:

FICTION
Placa del Fuego by Tobias S. Buckell
Placa del Fuego (AUDIO VERSION) by Tobias S. Buckell, read by Mike Allen
On the Lot and In the Air by Lisa Hannett

NONFICTION
Dirty Hands and Invisible Words: Speculative Fiction Book Editors Speak Out, Part 1 of 2 interview by Jeremy L. C. Jones
Doing Crappy Things to Good Characters: A Conversation with Jim C. Hines by Jeremy L. C. Jones
Helping Hands: Fairylands, Boneshops and More by Neil Clarke

COVER ART
Sea Monster by Jasper Ng

From the Talebones blog:

Special current issue sale at the Talebones website! I’ve got copies, and I’d like to move them to good homes.

FIVE BUCKS gets you a copy of #38.  That’s two dollars off the regular rate. AND FREE POSTAGE!

According to Jason Sizemore on the Apex blog:

“We’re pulling Apex Magazine out of hiatus and plan on releasing a new issue on the first Monday of July (July 6th).

Why now? And why the magazine?

As I’ve said before, I’m stubborn. That’s playing a role in this decision. But I also try to be sensible when it comes to expensive business decisions. This time, I have a better plan in terms of financing the magazine…”

Read their plan, here. Welcome back Apex. Best of luck!

Voting is still open for the 2009 Hugo Awards. If you aren’t familiar with all of this year’s semiprozine nominees, please take a moment to check them out before you vote:

• Clarkesworld Magazine
• Interzone
• Locus Magazine
• New York Review of Science Fiction
• Weird Tales

Taken from Patrick Swenson’s blog:

Talebones the magazine is closing up shop. There are many reasons, some of which I’ve mentioned before in earlier attempts to close the magazine (I thought I was out…but they dragged me back in!). Subscribers are hard to come by. I could throw numbers at you, but why bother? They’re not pretty. Talebones has stayed afloat for the last few years only because of (a) the Save Talebones drive two years ago and (b) other funding from Fairwood Press, the Rainforest retreat, and my pocket.

But even so … money is not the main reason I’m ending the mag. I need just a little less stress in my life, and more time for other things. My son. My health. My job. My writing.

And even so … Talebones is not dead. Oh no.

Talebones #37 will be out within the next month. Issue #38 before the end of the year. (Decisions were made not too long ago on that issue.)  I am returning all submissions that come to me, unread, with a note attached regarding the closure. I will take all of 2010 off from Talebones … except for the work/planning needed to put out the long-awaited Best of Talebones anthology. By the end of this year, Talebones will be owned by my book company, Fairwood Press.

Starting in 2011, Talebones will become an annual anthology. It will be all fiction, no poetry, probably no artwork other than the cover. It will have broader distribution (I hope). Submission guidelines will go up sometime in late 2010, and I will probably do some invites for that first anthology to get a good jump on things. I expect the guidelines to be fairly similar to the magazine guidelines. I also expect that submissions will be accepted during a limited window of time each year, and probably all online. Down the road there might be guest editors and themes. Don’t hold me completely to all these expectations, though.

So Talebones isn’t really going away. Just entering its chrysalis phase; when it comes out, it will hopefully be changed for the better. There’s no guarantee it will survive that way, either, but I’ve got to give it a try.

Subscribers…I’ll be contacting you about your options. You can certainly beat me to the punch and email me (or send a note to my LJ inbox) and I’ll get right to you. Some subscribers will have one or two issues left, some four, some even more. I’m not taking in any more subscriptions (the subscription option is gone from the website), but in the meantime, anyone, subscriber or not, can consider buying the last two issues individually, and even consider picking up some back issues. This will be extremely helpful, as it will not be an easy road financially getting subscriptions paid back and getting #38 out without any subscription money coming in.

http://tbclone47.livejournal.com/326278.html

The shortlist for this year’s British Fantasy Awards has been announced and voting is now open between now and the 1st of August. Semiprozines are represented in the following categories:

BEST SHORT FICTION

• “All Mouth”  by Paul Meloy, Black Static 6, Ed. Andy Cox – TTA Press
• “Winter Journey” by Joel Lane, Black Static 5, Ed. Andy Cox – TTA Press

BEST NON-FICTION

• “Mutant Popcorn” by Nick Lowe,  Interzone - TTA Press

BEST MAGAZINE

• Black Static (Andy Cox) TTA Press
• Interzone (Andy Cox et. al.) TTA Press
• Postscripts (Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers) PS Publishing

The Ditmar Awards have been awarded at the Australian National Science Fiction conventions since 1969 in order to recognise achievements in Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror.

Nominees and Winning Stories from Semiprozines

Best Novella

• “Night Heron’s Curse”, Thoraiya Dyer (in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, #37)
• “Painlessness”, Kirstyn McDermott (in GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 2, Spring 2008) WINNER

Best Short Story

• “This Is Not My Story”, Dirk Flinthart (in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, #37) WINNER (Tied)

It’s good to see discussion about the Semiprozine Hugo occurring elsewhere. Here are a couple of posts that should be of interest to our readers:

Shame, and Eternal Shame! Mike Glyer at File 770 reacts to John Klima’s recent savesemiprozine.org post, Why Should We Save the Semiprozine?

John replies on his blog with Semiprozine Thoughts.

As a current nominee for the Best Fanzine Hugo, you might wonder why I’m writing about saving the Best Semiprozine award. Also, given that in the past I’ve decried the fact that LOCUS is a perennial winner of the Best Semiprozine award, thereby calling the value of the award into question, might be another reason to make you wonder why I’m here. Last, if you picked up Electric Velocipede, you would probably feel pretty safe in calling it a magazine, and not think twice about it.

So why would someone who publishes something that looks every bit a Semiprozine (or more) yes still INSISTS on being considered a fanzine want to save the Semiprozine award? I mean, it would seem that I’m doing everything I can to avoid being the Semiprozine category, right?

Well, yes and no.

Until recently, I did every aspect of Electric Velocipede on my own. I even started out by making copies and the collating and folding the magazine myself. Even when the printer started doing that for me and I started to pay contributors in more than just copies, I still considered myself a fanzine. Staying in the Best Fanzine category was, in some ways, a source of pride.

The Semiprozine category for me, seemed to be publications where a group of people were putting it together. Or it had sort of a newsstand look to it. The publications that get nominated for the Best Semiprozine were on a different level from where I was.

I always looked at the Semiprozine category as something to aspire to. Something I could attain if I was able to increase my subscriber list, have color covers, have people help me put the magazine together… I never really thought I would get nominated for a Hugo, so my posturing on the two categories was moot.

But then, everything conflated together. I was honored with making the Hugo ballot in the Best Fanzine category, I partnered with Night Shade Books to increase my exposure/subscriber numbers, I started using color covers, and I got an assistant to help me put the magazine together. My hand, it would seem, was being forced. I could not continue on as a Fanzine.

Except, there’s talk that the Semiprozine category is being considered for elimination from the ballot. This would be a shame. There are a lot of nominees who work exceptionally hard on their publication who would miss out on being on the ballot. And for anyone who says that’s a load of crap, well, you’ve probably never been nominated for a Hugo, have you?

It’s freaking awesome.

While at times the Semiprozine award looks like the Hugo Award for LOCUS Magazine, it’s not. It has won almost every year that the award has been in existence, but if you look at Best Editor and Best Fanzine over that same time period, those awards don’t show much more diversity than Semiprozine.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Yes, for a long time, it was hard to know who was a Semiprozine and who wasn’t. But now, with websites like this, you can easily see all the qualified candidates. LOCUS doesn’t have to be the default candidate. It doesn’t have to be the default winner. If more people nominated, and more people voted, you might be surprised to see what the ballot looked like.

And yes, this is self-serving. But I’ve worked my ass off. I’ve gotten on the Hugo ballot through my own hard work. I published Electric Velocipede for almost nine years (16 issues) before I was on the ballot. I was working hard to get nominated for Best Fanzine so that I could move up to Best Semiprozine and now you’re going to take it away?

It seems unjust to take away from the people who work so hard on their publications, LOCUS included. LOCUS is a great magazine. I look forward to reading it every month. But I also look forward to a lot of the magazines/publications listed on this site. The people who put out these amazing publication deserve the recognition they get in this category.

Shame on you for wanting to take that from them.