Warren Lapine — former publisher of DNA Publications, which “at its heyday published fiction magazines Absolute Magnitude, Fantastic Stories, Weird Tales, Dreams of Decadence, and Mythic Delirium, news magazine Science Fiction Chronicle, the non-genre Whole Cat Magazine, and KISS: The Official Magazine ” — has returned. SFScope reports on the man’s past and future in their article Warren Lapine returns to sf with magazine, books, and checks By Ian Randal Strock.

Keep an eye out for his new publishing venture, Tir Na Nog, which will bring out a reconstituted Fantastic Stories.

Information on submissions from Apex Book Company, via Twitter:

• It is helpful when submitting a story to include a professional cover letter.
• Don’t send submissions directly to the editorial staff – please send submissions to the e-mail address listed in our guidelines.
• Please do not paste your story into the body of your email. It is an instant rejection and not helpful to anybody.
• Plausible story lines and science also go a long way.

I read this in today’s Ansible:

“GORDON VAN GELDER’s _The Magazine of Fantasy & SF_ is switching to
bimonthly publication. ‘Rising costs — especially postal costs — and
the economy put us in a position where we either had to raise our rates
severely or cut back somewhere. Given the state of the economy, I decided
a cutback on frequency made the most sense. We’ll lose a little more than
10% of our content this year, but publishing on a bimonthly schedule
should put us in a great position for the coming years.’ (2 January)”

Of course, me being me, I had to confirm it. This from the F&SF forum, posted by Mr. Gelder himself just 23 hours before this little post of mine:

“I thought I’d better start a new thread for this subject, but as mentioned in the “thin December issue” thread, F&SF is going bimonthly.

The March 2009 issue will be the last monthly issue. Starting with the April/May 2009 issue, we’ll be publishing one issue every two months. Each issue will be 256 pages (16 pages longer than our last Oct/Nov issue) except for this year’s anniversary issue, which will be a jumbo.

Subscribers don’t need to take any action. If your current sub expires with the April 2009 issue or with the May 2009 issue, your sub now expires with the April/May 2009 issue.

We’ve made the change because rising costs—especially postal costs—and the current economy put us in a position where we either had to raise our rates severely or cut back somewhere. Given the state of the economy, I decided a cutback in frequency made the most sense. We’ll lose a little more than 10% of our content this year, but we should be in a great position for the coming years.

I know it’s a big change and it will take a little while to get used to it, but I think it will work out fine. Thank you all for your support.”

If it keeps them in business, I say Best of Luck to Mr. Gelder and The
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction!

The Bellingham Review: Literature of palpable quality is looking for submissions. Associate editor Spencer Ellsworth says:

“We get a whole lot of stories from people more interested in experimenting with form than telling about interesting characters. I think everyone is pretty sold on ‘fantastic elements’ so while we wouldn’t consider something hard enough to be in, say, Analog, the kind of stuff that shows up in F&SF or Strange Horizons would be great.”

The general submission period is Sept. 15th – Feb. 1st. The guidelines say, “The editors welcome submissions of poems, stories, and essays. There are no limitations on form or subject matter.” Maximum length 9000 words or 3-5 poems. No electronic submissions. Pay: as funds permit.

For those who don’t read comments (yes, I know you’re out there!), I received this comment on my previous post:

Nat Says:
Hello, I’m Nat, the new Executive Editor/Owner of Afterburn SF. I really appreciate you helping spread the word about needing resubmissions. I also wanted to let everyone know that we have also increased our rate to $30 per published article and we are decreasing our publication frequency for now to a quarterly publication cycle.

Thanks again for your help and support!

Nat

Good information there, Nat! Thanks!

Now, I’ve been on hiatus for a few months. Rather than try to catch up on everything I’ve missed, I’m just going to give April’s news to date, over the next few days. Most of today’s information came from or through Ralan.com. Thanks, Ralan!

I do not guarantee ANYTHING

New Markets:

Drollerie Press is looking for “fiction works of all lengths that examine fairytales in unique and unusual ways. We are also interested in re-tellings of, or stories using characters from, Native American myth and legend.” Guidelines

Cat Tales: Fantastic Feline Fiction is a new anthology series being put out by Wildside Press, publishing “fantasy and suspense stories of 500-5,000 words involving cats.” Guidelines can be found at Ralan.com and Wildside Press.

Staffs & Starships Magazine is a PDF magazine of “literary quality speculative fiction”. Guidelines.

Tower of Light Fantasy, a new online magazine, is looking for “almost any kind of fantasy especially stories that blend genres, such as dark fantasy, science fantasy, and superhero fantasy.” Guidelines.

Blazing! Adventures Magazine will open to submissions on August 20, 2007, and will close again on September 20. “I’m bringing back the good ol’ style of writing that was made popular by the Pulp.” Guidelines

Hayseed Novellas will publish novellas in most styles and genres. “We want rich characters, interesting plots, and a developed voice. Unlike some small publishers, we don’t think commercial is a bad word.” Guidelines

Goblin Reader is currently accepting “Science Fiction (Cyber Punk ), Horror, Anything strange and unusual that is not in the mainstream.” Guidelines

Market Updates:

Backroom Publications says “Beginning in April, we will be reading submissions of novella and collections of fiction and poetry up to 50,000 words.” Guidelines

Withersin is open to submissions until September 1, 2007. Guidelines

Due to increased popularity, Aberrant Dreams has taken on a number of new editors. For a list of the new editors, check their news blog. Guidelines

Trabuco Road is open to submissions until May 3, 2007. Note that response time is now 6 weeks, and they now pay 5 cents per word. Guidelines

Interzone will be open to e-mail submissions during the months of May and November, 2007. Guidelines

As Hub is becoming a free e-zine, author payment rates have declined. Guidelines

Ralan’s says that Atomjack is going quarterly, but is doubling its pay rate to $10 per story. This isn’t reflected in Atomjack’s guidelines yet, though.

Afterburn has a new owner/editor, but somewhere along the way all previous submissions got lost. If you’ve got a sub in there, please resubmit. Guidelines

Electric Velocipede is open to all submissions, and has a new URL: electricvelocipede.com

Flytrap is open to submissions until May 31, 2007. Guidelines

Closed Markets:

Shadowed Realms is closed to submissions, and the next issue will be their last. Read the announcement on the Shadowed Realms Readers Forum.

Walking Bones is gone.

Hub is closed to fiction, except flash fiction between 800 and 1500 words. Guidelines

Rogue Worlds is closed to submissions until August 15, 2007. Guidelines

SpecFicWorld.com’s Featured Fiction is closed to submissions until January, 2008. SpecFicWorld’s Guidelines

Dark Energy SF is not accepting any submissions until September 1, 2007. Dark Energy SF website

Dated Markets (Anthologies, Contests, Special and Themed Issues):

Ticonderoga Press is looking for speculative “which focus on the migrant experience, both from the experience of the migrant and resident, stories of forced refugees and voluntary migrants” for an anthology entitled Belong/A Place Called Home. There will be two volumes: one containing stories by Australian authors, and the other by international writers. Deadline: September 1, 2007. Guidelines

News:

AnotherRealm is having a run of bad luck. Earlier this month, the website “was hacked by some not so nice people.” Now, as they rebuild their site, they are being sued by a certain unpopular agent, because they ‘mirror’ the Preditors & Editors site, and P&E says this agent is ‘Not recommended’, among other things. You can get more info at AnotherRealm’s website.