by Dianna L. Gunn
Have you heard of Tangent Online? They are the ultimate review magazine for fans of speculative fiction, critiquing everything SF/F they can acquire. Tangent Online is also one of the few publications to review both electronic and print magazines. We are fortunate that they have reviewed several issues of Penumbra.
Even though I love this issue of Penumbra, I was blown away by Tangent Online's stellar review of our January Ray Bradbury issue. It's one thing to gush about a magazine I've actually worked on, but it's more thrilling to see a third party reviewer with no obligation enjoy Penumbra, too.
So if you've considered the Ray Bradbury issue but want to know more about it, check out this review--and if you're already decided, you can purchase a copy here.
Showing posts with label Ray Bradbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ray Bradbury. Show all posts
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Introduction to the Godfathers of Science Fiction
by Kristen Saunders
You must forgive me for what I’m about to write, but I’ve committed a most grave sin among passionate science fiction readers. I have been enjoying the genre for years without reading any of the stories from the godfathers of science fiction. I had never heard of Arthur C. Clark or William Gibson until today. Until yesterday I had not touched Orson Scott Card, only a week ago did I touch Ray Bradbury, and I’ve never touched H.G. Wells. My familiarity with Isaac Asimov is limited to one short story called, Liar.
I read Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in the sixth grade and horribly failed the accelerated reading test. That particular AR test was set up to fail; it revolved around what bodies of water the Nautilus was in and when. Heinlein and Herbert were introduced to me last year, and I’ve only read one of each of their books. Neither being their most popular pieces. I guess I developed a tendency for fantasy without realizing it.
I haven’t been completely separated from the genre of sci-fi. I’ve watched science fiction movies and television shows for years. Sitting on the couch nestled under warm blankets watching Star Trek with my mom was a regular weekend ritual. I absorbed the story lines with relish and as a child would regularly take my hair band and put it over my eyes to mimic Geordi La Forge. I’ve always been a bit of a nerd and enjoyed reading, but I never really pursued science fiction in the written form.
The realization that I had not read these masters of the page came to me when we started putting together the Ray Bradbury issue of Penumbra. The first time I encountered Bradbury’s work I wasn’t even aware of it. I was at home sitting on the basement couch watching the movie version of Fahrenheit 451. As a high school student I finally understood why everyone had been so obsessed with the book. It was a terrifying prospect to me to go without books or reading, to become a drone that does nothing but watch television, and to watch those thoughts and words burn! I watched the film all the way through. Yet, I still chose not to pick up the book. I didn’t know who the author was, and I didn’t look for other works by the author of the story. At that time I didn’t see the point in reading a book I’d already watched. My mentality since then has changed, but by the time college came around Fahrenheit 451 was something that was in the recesses of my memory.
I wanted to understand Bradbury before I started work on his homage, so I sat on my very comfortable and thoroughly used couch to read his short biography and an excerpt from The Martian Chronicles. The enlightenment I obtained from this molder of sci-fi made me realize what I had been missing. For now, I have a lot of catch up reading to do to repent for my past reading sins.
Kristen Saunders is an intern Penumbra EMag. She loves to write science fiction in her free time and recently started her blog The Musings of a Growing Writer.
I read Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in the sixth grade and horribly failed the accelerated reading test. That particular AR test was set up to fail; it revolved around what bodies of water the Nautilus was in and when. Heinlein and Herbert were introduced to me last year, and I’ve only read one of each of their books. Neither being their most popular pieces. I guess I developed a tendency for fantasy without realizing it.
I haven’t been completely separated from the genre of sci-fi. I’ve watched science fiction movies and television shows for years. Sitting on the couch nestled under warm blankets watching Star Trek with my mom was a regular weekend ritual. I absorbed the story lines with relish and as a child would regularly take my hair band and put it over my eyes to mimic Geordi La Forge. I’ve always been a bit of a nerd and enjoyed reading, but I never really pursued science fiction in the written form.
The realization that I had not read these masters of the page came to me when we started putting together the Ray Bradbury issue of Penumbra. The first time I encountered Bradbury’s work I wasn’t even aware of it. I was at home sitting on the basement couch watching the movie version of Fahrenheit 451. As a high school student I finally understood why everyone had been so obsessed with the book. It was a terrifying prospect to me to go without books or reading, to become a drone that does nothing but watch television, and to watch those thoughts and words burn! I watched the film all the way through. Yet, I still chose not to pick up the book. I didn’t know who the author was, and I didn’t look for other works by the author of the story. At that time I didn’t see the point in reading a book I’d already watched. My mentality since then has changed, but by the time college came around Fahrenheit 451 was something that was in the recesses of my memory.
I wanted to understand Bradbury before I started work on his homage, so I sat on my very comfortable and thoroughly used couch to read his short biography and an excerpt from The Martian Chronicles. The enlightenment I obtained from this molder of sci-fi made me realize what I had been missing. For now, I have a lot of catch up reading to do to repent for my past reading sins.
Kristen Saunders is an intern Penumbra EMag. She loves to write science fiction in her free time and recently started her blog The Musings of a Growing Writer.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Word Association and Ray Bradbury
by Sean Houlihan
In his essay Run Fast, Stand Still, or, the Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or, New Ghosts from Old Minds (Zen in the Art of Writing, Joshua Odell Editions,1994), Ray Bradbury makes a case for word association as a tool for writers: “It was only when I began to discover the treats and tricks that came with word association that I began to find some true way through the minefields of imitation. I finally figured out that if you are going to step on a live mine, make it your own. Be blown up, as it were, by your own delights and despairs.”
What Bradbury would do is create one to two word lists of nouns- recurring images that reflected loves and hates. An early list would run something like this: The Lake, The Night, The Crickets, The Ravine, The Attic, The Basement, The Trap-door, The Baby, The Crowd, The Night Train, The Fog Horn, The Scythe, The Carnival, The Carousel, The Dwarf, The Mirror Maze, and The Skeleton.
Anyone familiar with Bradbury’s work will recognize familiar motifs: a drowned girl who builds a sandcastle on the shore of the lake she died in years ago; an ancient sea creature, the last, that mistakes the horn of a lighthouse for another of its kind; a midget, who, everyday, longingly stares into a fun house mirror; an illustrated man, who’s tattoos are precursors of horrors yet committed...
A few years ago, I tried to put Bradbury’s word association technique into practice. I wrote down a list of recurring images I’d been having: The Actor, The Rocket Man, The Terminal Ward, The Mentor, The Unrequited Love... And then I started writing, with no direction other than that list of nouns. The story I wrote was called Arcadia, and it was about a man on his deathbed who keeps slipping out of consciousness, and flashing back to a cheesy B-movie he had starred in when he was a young man- which also happened to star the only woman he ever loved.
It was the first story I sold to a professional publication.
Afterwards, I started to piece together where the list had come from. I was a huge science fiction fan, and Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis, the stars of the seminal sci-fi film Forbidden Planet, had died relatively close to one another during the time of my writing Arcadia (Nielsen died the 28th of November, 2010; Francis on January 2, 2011); also, at this time, I was dealing with death in my personal life: a beloved grandfather and a college professor I was close with, had also passed.
The only addendum I’d put to Bradbury’s usage of word association as a tool for writers, is that I don’t agree that the nouns need necessarily reflect such extremes as loves and hates; they can be any recurring image, whether you know why it’s there or not. If an image is rattling around in your brain, even if you don’t know why, it’s got to be there for a reason, and perhaps, through your writing, you’ll discover why.
The idea of just generating a random list from one’s subconscious and then writing scattershot, may seem ungainly to writers who like to compose detailed outlines before committing anything to paper. That’s a perfectly natural reaction, this technique is not for everyone.
But, let’s face it, if we only wrote when we were truly inspired, and had a thorough plan of attack, we wouldn’t do much writing.
That’s why writing through word association is a great writer’s technique, it lets us sidestep the writer’s outline, while allowing us an opportunity to find inspiration through the exploration of our own subconscious.
Sean Houlihan lives in the northeastern United States, and is not so much a writer, but rather a cipher for a battle-scarred bicolor cat who dictates her stories to him between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning.
He is a lifelong fan of Ray Bradbury and considers Fahrenheit 451 one of the greatest novels ever written.
What Bradbury would do is create one to two word lists of nouns- recurring images that reflected loves and hates. An early list would run something like this: The Lake, The Night, The Crickets, The Ravine, The Attic, The Basement, The Trap-door, The Baby, The Crowd, The Night Train, The Fog Horn, The Scythe, The Carnival, The Carousel, The Dwarf, The Mirror Maze, and The Skeleton.
Anyone familiar with Bradbury’s work will recognize familiar motifs: a drowned girl who builds a sandcastle on the shore of the lake she died in years ago; an ancient sea creature, the last, that mistakes the horn of a lighthouse for another of its kind; a midget, who, everyday, longingly stares into a fun house mirror; an illustrated man, who’s tattoos are precursors of horrors yet committed...
A few years ago, I tried to put Bradbury’s word association technique into practice. I wrote down a list of recurring images I’d been having: The Actor, The Rocket Man, The Terminal Ward, The Mentor, The Unrequited Love... And then I started writing, with no direction other than that list of nouns. The story I wrote was called Arcadia, and it was about a man on his deathbed who keeps slipping out of consciousness, and flashing back to a cheesy B-movie he had starred in when he was a young man- which also happened to star the only woman he ever loved.
It was the first story I sold to a professional publication.
Afterwards, I started to piece together where the list had come from. I was a huge science fiction fan, and Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis, the stars of the seminal sci-fi film Forbidden Planet, had died relatively close to one another during the time of my writing Arcadia (Nielsen died the 28th of November, 2010; Francis on January 2, 2011); also, at this time, I was dealing with death in my personal life: a beloved grandfather and a college professor I was close with, had also passed.
The only addendum I’d put to Bradbury’s usage of word association as a tool for writers, is that I don’t agree that the nouns need necessarily reflect such extremes as loves and hates; they can be any recurring image, whether you know why it’s there or not. If an image is rattling around in your brain, even if you don’t know why, it’s got to be there for a reason, and perhaps, through your writing, you’ll discover why.
The idea of just generating a random list from one’s subconscious and then writing scattershot, may seem ungainly to writers who like to compose detailed outlines before committing anything to paper. That’s a perfectly natural reaction, this technique is not for everyone.
But, let’s face it, if we only wrote when we were truly inspired, and had a thorough plan of attack, we wouldn’t do much writing.
That’s why writing through word association is a great writer’s technique, it lets us sidestep the writer’s outline, while allowing us an opportunity to find inspiration through the exploration of our own subconscious.
Sean Houlihan lives in the northeastern United States, and is not so much a writer, but rather a cipher for a battle-scarred bicolor cat who dictates her stories to him between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning.
He is a lifelong fan of Ray Bradbury and considers Fahrenheit 451 one of the greatest novels ever written.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
The Legacy of a Writer
by Dianna L. Gunn
Ordinary people will be lucky to be remembered by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren after they die. Great artists and writers, who often began as ordinary people, are luckier: they will be remembered by their fans and their fans' children. Some are even remembered by the whole world—I mean, who hasn't heard of Tolkien or Da Vinci?
One writer likely to be remembered for generations—and who has already touched lives in multiple generations—is Ray Bradbury. Even I, who have read only a small portion of his large body of work, will remember him until the day I die. Every member of my family loves books, and both my grandmother and my mother have greatly enjoyed Ray Bradbury's fiction.
There is a long tradition among writers of honouring our greats by writing stories inspired by them and articles about them. The honours bestowed upon these masters of our craft can take many forms. Some are honoured with books of essays about their work. Others are honoured by a commemorative edition of their book with an intro by a current writer. Some have contests run in their name. Others are honoured by a themed issue of a magazine, such as this issue of Penumbra. The greatest authors get several of these honours.
This is the writer's dream: to be remembered, to make their mark on the world, to inspire others. The loss of Ray Bradbury in June of last year was enormously sad to all fans of speculative fiction, but his work shall live on, keeping his memory alive. So it is that no great writer truly dies: they live on in the hearts of others for hundreds of years. While it can be said that our lost loved ones live on in our hearts, when we die, their memories are usually gone for good—but great writers and artists live much longer in just the same way.
As a writer myself, I can only hope to be remembered half so well, that one day I will be honoured as I honour Ray Bradbury today.
Dianna L. Gunn is a young Canadian fiction writer who specializes in dark fantasy. She also writes poetry, generally dark, which is her way of dealing with life. This insightful author hosts a website covering every aspect of fiction writing and interviews with noted guest authors.
Learn more about Dianna L. Gunn on her website and follow her on Twitter.
One writer likely to be remembered for generations—and who has already touched lives in multiple generations—is Ray Bradbury. Even I, who have read only a small portion of his large body of work, will remember him until the day I die. Every member of my family loves books, and both my grandmother and my mother have greatly enjoyed Ray Bradbury's fiction.
There is a long tradition among writers of honouring our greats by writing stories inspired by them and articles about them. The honours bestowed upon these masters of our craft can take many forms. Some are honoured with books of essays about their work. Others are honoured by a commemorative edition of their book with an intro by a current writer. Some have contests run in their name. Others are honoured by a themed issue of a magazine, such as this issue of Penumbra. The greatest authors get several of these honours.
This is the writer's dream: to be remembered, to make their mark on the world, to inspire others. The loss of Ray Bradbury in June of last year was enormously sad to all fans of speculative fiction, but his work shall live on, keeping his memory alive. So it is that no great writer truly dies: they live on in the hearts of others for hundreds of years. While it can be said that our lost loved ones live on in our hearts, when we die, their memories are usually gone for good—but great writers and artists live much longer in just the same way.
As a writer myself, I can only hope to be remembered half so well, that one day I will be honoured as I honour Ray Bradbury today.
Dianna L. Gunn is a young Canadian fiction writer who specializes in dark fantasy. She also writes poetry, generally dark, which is her way of dealing with life. This insightful author hosts a website covering every aspect of fiction writing and interviews with noted guest authors.
Learn more about Dianna L. Gunn on her website and follow her on Twitter.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Counting Sunrises
by SS Hampton, Sr.
Ray Bradbury died on 5 June 2012. He was an iconic science fiction and self-proclaimed fantasy writer. I grew up in Kansas reading his stories and, as a result, learned of the many worlds that lay beyond the flat, tornado-prone state. His death is a loss to the literary world, and his loss is a reminder of my own mortality.
I was young when I began brooding about death, my own in particular. In that respect I preceded the Gothic culture and its’ death-obsessed kids that became popular 10-20 years later. Now, in my late fifties, I find myself brooding about it once again.
If memory serves me correctly, I think Captain Jean Luc Picard said it far more eloquently than I could have ever dreamed of (ahem, yes, I know he’s not a real person): “There are far more sunrises behind me, than before me.”
During those angst-filled days on the Kansas prairies, I read an article about Vincent Price, the classic horror actor of the 60’s. You know, The Fall of the House of Usher(1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Mask of the Red Death (1964), and other horror movies of a similar vein. It seems he was an art collector, gourmet cook, writer, and when Sears & Roebuck wanted to offer fine art reproductions for the average homeowner, they asked Mr. Price to choose the art. It was reported that even a museum or library asked him for all of his personal papers so that future historians could access his history and thoughts.
I was stunned by reading of such a request. Imagine—historians going over your personal correspondence to and from family, friends, even editors and publishers; reading your notes, perhaps even charting the evolution of a story from first notes, first draft, second draft, and then, a final manuscript. For someone to receive such a request seemed, to me, to never be forgotten. Never disappear from history. The idea was almost like...immortality.
Fast forward…
I kept writing, I even started seeing success—no Pulitzer Prize in Literature, or multi-million dollar contract yet, but one can always hope. In 2004 I joined the Army National Guard, was mobilized for active duty, and after almost two years stateside, I and many other Cavalry Soldiers volunteered for deployment. Suddenly, pre-deployment training was finished. We were headed for Kuwait, though the mission would take many Soldiers into Iraq every day, where insurgents waited with AK-47s, RPGs, and IEDs.
Again, my sense of mortality became somewhat acute.
I made sure I packed all of my writing folders, books, magazines, and personal papers. Each folder contained story drafts and final manuscripts, research material for that particular story, and e-mails between myself and the website or e-magazine that published the story. I wrote the museum that serves my tribe, for I am a Native American and explained where I was going. Though the possibility might be slight, I asked if they would accept my writings and personal papers, “just in case.”
The museum said “yes.” It was with a sense of relief and a smile that, during our brief leave before deployment, I set off on my “farewell tour” to visit my children, my grandchildren, and my mother and step-father—just, in case.
Fortunately, there was no “just in case.”
So, once more I am reminded of my own mortality due to the passing of someone I never met, but whom I admired and respected.
But, no matter how many sunrises remain before me, I know that when I cross over, somewhere in this world my name will remain. Maybe there won’t be many people beyond family and friends who will remember me, but my name is out there on e-books and e-stories waiting to be downloaded by someone, someday. And maybe someday, a person may pluck a thick writing folder from a special collections shelf, and wonder what the first draft of a story looked like compared to the final manuscript. They might even think, “Who the hell was SS Hampton, Sr.?”
Gee. If that ever happens it’s almost like…immortality.
SS Hampton, Sr. is a full-blood Choctaw of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, a divorced grandfather to 13, and a veteran of Operations Noble Eagle (2004-2006) and Iraqi Freedom (2006-2007). He continues to serve in the Army National Guard, where he holds the rank of staff sergeant.
Hampton is also a published photographer and photojournalist, an aspiring painter, and is studying for a degree in anthropology. His writings have appeared as stand-alone stories and in anthologies from MUSA Publishing, (The Lapis Lazuli Throne), Melange Books (Intimate Journeys; R.U.S.H.; Christmas Collectibles 2010; and Hearts of Tomorrow), Ravenous Romance (Back Door Lover), and Dark Opus Press (In Poe’s Shadow), and as stand-alone stories in Horror Bound Magazine, Ruthie’s Club, Lucrezia Magazine, The Harrow, and River Walk Journal, among others. In 2012 he has another story forthcoming in an anthology from Edge SF & Fantasy (Danse Macabre), as well as a stand-alone story releasing from MuseItUp Publishing.
Ray Bradbury died on 5 June 2012. He was an iconic science fiction and self-proclaimed fantasy writer. I grew up in Kansas reading his stories and, as a result, learned of the many worlds that lay beyond the flat, tornado-prone state. His death is a loss to the literary world, and his loss is a reminder of my own mortality.I was young when I began brooding about death, my own in particular. In that respect I preceded the Gothic culture and its’ death-obsessed kids that became popular 10-20 years later. Now, in my late fifties, I find myself brooding about it once again.
If memory serves me correctly, I think Captain Jean Luc Picard said it far more eloquently than I could have ever dreamed of (ahem, yes, I know he’s not a real person): “There are far more sunrises behind me, than before me.”
During those angst-filled days on the Kansas prairies, I read an article about Vincent Price, the classic horror actor of the 60’s. You know, The Fall of the House of Usher(1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Mask of the Red Death (1964), and other horror movies of a similar vein. It seems he was an art collector, gourmet cook, writer, and when Sears & Roebuck wanted to offer fine art reproductions for the average homeowner, they asked Mr. Price to choose the art. It was reported that even a museum or library asked him for all of his personal papers so that future historians could access his history and thoughts.I was stunned by reading of such a request. Imagine—historians going over your personal correspondence to and from family, friends, even editors and publishers; reading your notes, perhaps even charting the evolution of a story from first notes, first draft, second draft, and then, a final manuscript. For someone to receive such a request seemed, to me, to never be forgotten. Never disappear from history. The idea was almost like...immortality.
Fast forward…
I kept writing, I even started seeing success—no Pulitzer Prize in Literature, or multi-million dollar contract yet, but one can always hope. In 2004 I joined the Army National Guard, was mobilized for active duty, and after almost two years stateside, I and many other Cavalry Soldiers volunteered for deployment. Suddenly, pre-deployment training was finished. We were headed for Kuwait, though the mission would take many Soldiers into Iraq every day, where insurgents waited with AK-47s, RPGs, and IEDs.
Again, my sense of mortality became somewhat acute.
I made sure I packed all of my writing folders, books, magazines, and personal papers. Each folder contained story drafts and final manuscripts, research material for that particular story, and e-mails between myself and the website or e-magazine that published the story. I wrote the museum that serves my tribe, for I am a Native American and explained where I was going. Though the possibility might be slight, I asked if they would accept my writings and personal papers, “just in case.”
The museum said “yes.” It was with a sense of relief and a smile that, during our brief leave before deployment, I set off on my “farewell tour” to visit my children, my grandchildren, and my mother and step-father—just, in case.
Fortunately, there was no “just in case.”
So, once more I am reminded of my own mortality due to the passing of someone I never met, but whom I admired and respected.
But, no matter how many sunrises remain before me, I know that when I cross over, somewhere in this world my name will remain. Maybe there won’t be many people beyond family and friends who will remember me, but my name is out there on e-books and e-stories waiting to be downloaded by someone, someday. And maybe someday, a person may pluck a thick writing folder from a special collections shelf, and wonder what the first draft of a story looked like compared to the final manuscript. They might even think, “Who the hell was SS Hampton, Sr.?”
Gee. If that ever happens it’s almost like…immortality.
SS Hampton, Sr. is a full-blood Choctaw of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, a divorced grandfather to 13, and a veteran of Operations Noble Eagle (2004-2006) and Iraqi Freedom (2006-2007). He continues to serve in the Army National Guard, where he holds the rank of staff sergeant.
Hampton is also a published photographer and photojournalist, an aspiring painter, and is studying for a degree in anthropology. His writings have appeared as stand-alone stories and in anthologies from MUSA Publishing, (The Lapis Lazuli Throne), Melange Books (Intimate Journeys; R.U.S.H.; Christmas Collectibles 2010; and Hearts of Tomorrow), Ravenous Romance (Back Door Lover), and Dark Opus Press (In Poe’s Shadow), and as stand-alone stories in Horror Bound Magazine, Ruthie’s Club, Lucrezia Magazine, The Harrow, and River Walk Journal, among others. In 2012 he has another story forthcoming in an anthology from Edge SF & Fantasy (Danse Macabre), as well as a stand-alone story releasing from MuseItUp Publishing.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Musa EMag 2011 Issues, New Opportunities and Spec Fic Everywhere!
Over the past few weeks, we've been playing with several different directions for Penumbra EMag, the upcoming electronic magazine from Musa Publishing. It's not easy to put a publishing house and a magazine together at the same time. But...well...we like challenges. At the moment, this whole process is exhilarating. Reading and adjudicating submissions, playing with different stories for different issues, working on layout and design, viewing art—all of these processes have been a lot of fun, believe it or not.
Each issue will be themed. Some of those issues will just have the genre as the theme, but others will be centered around a concept, one that lends itself to all three genres we accept. For example, the issue we're releasing on October 1, 2011, to launch both the magazine and Musa will be an arts-themed issue. Every story deals with either music or painting or writing or dancing or scultping—you get the idea. I *personally* am so impressed by the beautifully written, evocative, outstanding works of shorter fiction in my final selection group that I get excited just thinking about it.
Not very editorial, you say? You need to meet more editors.
The November 1, 2011, issue is death-themed. Yeah, I know: that creates a broad spectrum I can choose from, but I like that. Besides, you can never have too much death, now can you? (That would be the spec fic hack in me talking. I have more fun writing a great death than anything else) The December 1, 2011, will feature stories involving travel (time travel included!).
Once we get into the beginning of 2012, we'll have our sports-themed issue—either spec fic treatments of real-life sports or created sports in other worlds/eras/societies. What better way to survive Super Bowl Sunday than with a jai alai game in Hell? And then, there's my particular favorite, the Shakespeare issue. Reworking Shakespeare into a different genre—hardcore sci fi Romeo and Juliet could be a lot of fun. If Sense and Sensibility can hook up with zombies, just think how much fun Hamlet performed with hamsters could be! Or, conversely, stories that deal with Shakespeare in other ways—like an urban fantasy that takes place at a Shakespearean festival. We're looking at an all-steampunk issue, a space opera issue, an homage to Ray Bradbury whose short story All Summer In A Day still has one of my favorite sentences ever:
Let's just say the possibilities are endless. Speculative fiction is grand that way. (Authors—please don't submit for these potential themed issues until we issue a specific call for that issue. Thanks!)
In the next week or so, we'll be setting our lineup for each issue. One of the other exciting things we're doing with Penumbra is our Rising Talent free read. Every month, we'll select one of the manuscripts from a newer author that makes it to the later rounds of evaluation and publish it on our site for Penumbra fans to check out. That author will get paid a flat fee for the story—so yes, it's a sale!—and we'll introduce him or her to speculative fiction readers. We are also adjudicating art submissions for each issue. The art director will select her top five picks each month and use them in the magazine, and readers will be able to vote for their favorites. The artist who wins the monthly contest will get a cash prize of $50 and a commission for another piece of featured art in a future Penumbra issue.
Not too shabby.
So stay tuned. Keep an eye on what's going on. We'll list special theme submission calls, information about our authors and great deals for the readers. Excitement is building in the Penumbra offices—and hopefully that excitement is contagious.
Each issue will be themed. Some of those issues will just have the genre as the theme, but others will be centered around a concept, one that lends itself to all three genres we accept. For example, the issue we're releasing on October 1, 2011, to launch both the magazine and Musa will be an arts-themed issue. Every story deals with either music or painting or writing or dancing or scultping—you get the idea. I *personally* am so impressed by the beautifully written, evocative, outstanding works of shorter fiction in my final selection group that I get excited just thinking about it.
Not very editorial, you say? You need to meet more editors.
The November 1, 2011, issue is death-themed. Yeah, I know: that creates a broad spectrum I can choose from, but I like that. Besides, you can never have too much death, now can you? (That would be the spec fic hack in me talking. I have more fun writing a great death than anything else) The December 1, 2011, will feature stories involving travel (time travel included!).
Once we get into the beginning of 2012, we'll have our sports-themed issue—either spec fic treatments of real-life sports or created sports in other worlds/eras/societies. What better way to survive Super Bowl Sunday than with a jai alai game in Hell? And then, there's my particular favorite, the Shakespeare issue. Reworking Shakespeare into a different genre—hardcore sci fi Romeo and Juliet could be a lot of fun. If Sense and Sensibility can hook up with zombies, just think how much fun Hamlet performed with hamsters could be! Or, conversely, stories that deal with Shakespeare in other ways—like an urban fantasy that takes place at a Shakespearean festival. We're looking at an all-steampunk issue, a space opera issue, an homage to Ray Bradbury whose short story All Summer In A Day still has one of my favorite sentences ever:
It was as if, in the midst of a film, concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a peaceful tropical slide which did not move or tremor.
Let's just say the possibilities are endless. Speculative fiction is grand that way. (Authors—please don't submit for these potential themed issues until we issue a specific call for that issue. Thanks!)
In the next week or so, we'll be setting our lineup for each issue. One of the other exciting things we're doing with Penumbra is our Rising Talent free read. Every month, we'll select one of the manuscripts from a newer author that makes it to the later rounds of evaluation and publish it on our site for Penumbra fans to check out. That author will get paid a flat fee for the story—so yes, it's a sale!—and we'll introduce him or her to speculative fiction readers. We are also adjudicating art submissions for each issue. The art director will select her top five picks each month and use them in the magazine, and readers will be able to vote for their favorites. The artist who wins the monthly contest will get a cash prize of $50 and a commission for another piece of featured art in a future Penumbra issue.
Not too shabby.
So stay tuned. Keep an eye on what's going on. We'll list special theme submission calls, information about our authors and great deals for the readers. Excitement is building in the Penumbra offices—and hopefully that excitement is contagious.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)