Announcing the Science in My Fiction short story contest! March 22, 2010
Posted by bartleib in : announcements, events, publications , add a commentOuter Alliance members Bart Leib and Kay Holt, founders of Crossed Genres and Science in My Fiction, have announced the Science in My Fiction short story contest!
“Here’s how it works: Authors write a science fiction or fantasy short story which is inspired by a scientific discovery or innovation made or announced within the past year. It can’t be peripherally added: the science must be integral to the story. Writers must include a link to a relevant article or study of the applied science when they submit their stories.”
A panel of 6 amazing judges will vote on the finalists. Two of the six judges (Nicola Griffith and Cat Rambo) are members of Outer Alliance.
There’s $400 of cash prizes to be won, plus subscriptions, books, etc.
Please visit the contest page, read the entry guidelines, see who the judges are, and read about our Kickstarter drive to put the winning stories in print!
Then, enter your story! The contest will be open for entries from April 1 through June 30. Winners will be announced on July 21.
Show us there’s still room for real Science in fiction! Huge thanks to everyone who helped us make the contest happen!
Crossed Genres: Will you play ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ with me? November 19, 2009
Posted by bartleib in : announcements, news, queer-friendly publishers , add a comment(Originally posted by Kay Holt in her Livejournal.)
Crossed Genres is in trouble. It’s not ‘end of the world’ trouble, but it’s building to that.
Bart and I have been paying for it out of pocket for a year and in that time, the magazine has taken in less than 35% of what we paid into it. And that’s not including the value of our labor because we don’t pay ourselves for running Crossed Genres. ‘Pay the contributors first,’ is one of our foundational principles. And you know what? Our contributors are grateful. They’ve bought more copies of the magazine than everyone else combined. Which is a great sign of the relationships we’re building with our writers and artists, but a very bad omen for the business as a whole.
We’re not looking to get rich off CG. Someday we’d like to be able to pay our contributors pro rates, but even at the very respectable pace we’re growing, we’re years away from that. Frankly, if CG doesn’t start growing like an irradiated lizard, it will never reach that point. Because if Crossed Genres doesn’t start breaking even soon, we’ll have to shut it down.
Crossed Genres is the best thing Bart and I have built together, besides our son, and we’re not done with it yet. As I said, we’d like to start paying pro rates. We’d like to have daily Flash Fiction and a weekly webcomic in the subscribers’ area of our site. We’d like to start a quarterly magazine on the side; one that’s just for our adult readers, if you know what I mean. Someday, we’d even like to have a game developed for Crossed Genres.
Ambition, we’ve got. Momentum is what we need.
By every measure except sales, Crossed Genres has had a successful first year. The magazine has surpassed every other goal we set for 2009. We’ve also put a lot more work into it than we originally intended, but that happens when you love what you do. But we can’t do everything on our own.
Crossed Genres needs you. Yes, all of you.
There’s a little game we used to play in college called ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’. Most of you recognize that game as the Hollywood adaptation of the original idea that any two strangers on Earth are only separated from each other by at most six other relationships (each relationship is a degree of separation). In the game, movie trivia buffs challenge each other to link other actors to Kevin Bacon in as few degrees as possible. Bruce Willis was in Pulp Fiction with Uma Thurman, who was in Henry & June with Fred Ward, who was in Tremors with Kevin Bacon. Voila! From Bruce Willis to Kevin Bacon in only two degrees.
Some of you have already figured out where I’m going with this, and that’s fine. Use that head start to go tell Bruce Willis that Crossed Genres exists. Or Patrick Stewart, or Peter Jackson, or Lucy Lawless, or Neil Patrick Harris. Go tell Kevin Bacon, for goodness sake! He might like the magazine, and he might tell someone else that he likes it. And since he’s Kevin Bacon, the whole world might hear about CG as a result.
Yes, friends of Crossed Genres, I want you to play ‘Six Degrees’ with me. In a way, it’s just a grown-up version of the playground classic, ‘Post Office’. You tell everyone you know that Crossed Genres is great and affordable, and you tell them to pass it on. They tell everyone they know about CG and tell them to pass is on. And so on, and before you know it, the Crossed Genres website crashes because Neil Gaiman absentmindedly mentions it to his 1.3 million Twitter followers (purple monkey dishwasher).
That highly desirable problem is called a ‘NeilWebFail’, and for the record, if only 1/100th of 1% (~one out of every 8,700) of his followers preordered the Crossed Genres Anthology, we would reach our minimum goal overnight.
The internet is practically built for memes like this.
I can hear you thinking to yourself, “But I don’t know anyone famous.” Me neither. I think of all my friends as rockstars, but I know that most of you have friends like me; people who are too busy barely getting by to actually accomplish anything very far-reaching. That’s okay. In the long run, we’re all still just a few degrees away from Kevin Bacon (and my mom once met Bruce Willis in a sporting goods store).
Before you start telling me that it’s tacky to beg for celebrity endorsement, be assured that’s not what I’m doing. If you know a celebrity, of course I want you to tell them about Crossed Genres. But I really want you to tell everybody you know about CG. It’s called word of mouth advertising, and it’s three or four times as effective as the flashy stuff you see all over the internet and plastered across every marketable flat surface in the real world.
Your help could mean the difference between Crossed Genres celebrating a second anniversary or disappearing within the next year.
Will you play ‘Six Degrees’ with me?
(Reposted with permission.)
New zine: SURVIVAL BY STORYTELLING November 1, 2009
Posted by mbranesf in : announcements, queer-friendly publishers , add a commentWe received this report today from Alliance member Shaun Duke about a new magazine for younger writers:
“I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know about the
release of the first issue of the magazine I have been working on.
It’s called Survival By Storytelling. Our announcement for the
release, with all the info on where it’s being sold, about our being
non-profit, and what we print (fiction and poetry by writers 25 years
old or younger, with some commissioned pieces by published authors)
can be found here: http://sbsmag.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/survival-by-storytelling-issue-one-is-up-for-sale/
“Spread the word, if you like. We also may have review copies
available if you have a review blog or a magazine with a review column
or something. Preferably digital, because we are non-profit, but I
will have a handful of hard copies in a week or so.
“The reason I bring this up is that, while our first issue doesn’t, as
far as I know, contain fiction by or about LGBT authors/issues, our
magazine is very open to LGBT authors/issues. The only thing we
explicitly don’t take are erotica and works with excessive levels of
gore or foul language (cursing is fine, as long as it has a purpose).
We will be opening submissions again soon, depending on how well the
first issue does, but I wanted you all to know about it, in case any
of you are young enough to submit. Our submission guidelines are
here: http://sbsmag.wordpress.com/guidelines/
“For us, a good story is a good story. So, just to clarify, when we
say we are open to things like science fiction or, as I’m saying here,
LGBT fiction, we mean it! (I’m personally an SF fan, but the magazine
is open to all genres specifically because the parent group, Young
Writers Online, isn’t SF specific, so, I have to play nice).
“Thanks for your time and hopefully I’ll see some fiction from Outer
Alliance members in the near future!”
Hayden Thorne’s new novel released October 21, 2009
Posted by mbranesf in : announcements, publications , add a commentWhat does it mean to see shadowy forms mingling with London’s daily crowds?
Genre GLBT Young Adult writer, Hayden Thorne, explores a few curious little mysteries that enter fifteen-year-old Norris Woodhead’s dull and lonely life in her new novel, The Twilight Gods. Set in Victorian England during the Great Exhibition, the story follows Norris’ unusual coming-of-age at a time when England celebrates advances in technology and science.
The Twilight Gods is a retelling of a Native American folktale called “The Girl Who Married a Ghost.” It is a melding of the fantastic with the real, in which a gay teen’s coming-out process is explored along supernatural lines. The novel’s plot might be steeped in folklore and magic, but the issues Norris faces are not.
Hayden Thorne has written other genre titles for GLBT teens: a historical romance, a Victorian ghost story, and a contemporary superhero series. She is currently writing a sequel to her Masks superhero trilogy. She owns a blog at http://www.haydenthorne.net/.
The book is now available through the publisher (ebook and print) and Amazon (print only).
LACUNA: New historical fiction journal launches October 15, 2009
Posted by mbranesf in : announcements, publications, queer-friendly publishers , add a commentMegan Arkenberg reports the launch of her new historical fiction publication Lacuna. Says Megan in her introduction:
“When I first decided to create a historical fiction magazine, there were three publications listed on Duotrope’s Digest dedicated exclusively to the genre: by the time Lacuna opened to submissions, there were only two. For me, as for many of you who read historical fiction, write it, or both, this is a very sad state of affairs. I created Lacuna in the hope that it could provide some relief for both readers and writers looking for a place to enjoy and create tales of days gone by.
“The lack of historical fiction magazines which lead to the creation of Lacuna has also kept me from narrowing the magazine’s focus to one particular style or theme. The stories are not all literary—though they are beautifully written and meticulously characterized; nor are they all adventure and suspense—though I guarantee you’ll find them hard to put down. The settings run from 19th century Spain to biblical Timnah to the pre-Columbian (or is it?) New World. Some stories have fantasy elements, some are alternate histories, and some aim for precision and historical accuracy.”
Though not specifically focused on queer-oriented fiction, Lacuna is open submissions with queer content.
Washington domestic partnership law under attack October 6, 2009
Posted by mbranesf in : announcements, links , add a commentPlease visit this page and read Jen’s post about the looming deadline to save the state of Washington’s new domestic partnership law. People who live in Washington (and people who do not) can get active now and make sure that the Referendum 71 vote succeeds. The forces of bigotry and lunacy frequently try to use these off-year referenda and special elections to advance their evil (a similar thing is afoot in Maine). Let’s not let it happen this time.
The passage of Proposition 8 in California last year established a terrible precedent. The forces of bigotry were emboldened because, yes, it turns out that voters will, in fact, vote to take away people’s rights. This is a relatively rare concept in this country. Generally, once civil rights are conferred they are not taken away. But now it’s routine to try to do exactly that.
OCTOBER 11 is COMING OUT DAY! October 5, 2009
Posted by mbranesf in : announcements, events , 2commentsOctober 11 is Coming Out Day. To mark this occasion, we are encouraging members of the Outer Alliance to write and post on their sites some short coming-out stories. These can be personal or fictional, told from your own perspective or through that of a character. Another possibility would be to talk about what it’s like coming out in the speculative fiction community or what kinds of challenges or experiences have resulted from it. Also, it would great for members to link to this site and encourage new people to join the group.
We probably should have been promoting this idea a bit earlier than now, but we managed to come up with the 9/1 Pride Day and its stunning collection of blog posts pretty quickly…so we should be able to do something comparable again. Members who have a post on this day can share the link to it in the Forum (I will add a topic for them) or by way of the Google Group list, and we will gather the links together in a blog post as well, like we did on the Pride Day.
Hal Duncan @ BSCreview on the Outer Alliance October 1, 2009
Posted by Natania in : announcements, links, The Outer Alliance , add a commentSince the Outer Alliance came into existence last month, we’ve grown rather large rather fast, and we’ve already seen some surprising controversy and discussion. Outer Alliance member Hal Duncan recently wrote an article for BSCreview entitled “Notes from New Sodom: To the Water Fountains” which contains within a rather remarkable reflection on some of what we’ve been able to achieve in the last month and change. I was particularly taken with his reflections on the FFO issue and its aftermath.
But in place of another fucking FailFail, what we ended up with was not just a host of impassioned but level-headed criticism and statements of support, but tangible positive outcomes, with the rejected ad being displayed on scores of blogs and journals and free advertising space being offered by at least one major site. No shitstorm. No FailFail. This was a Win.
You might well agree; I sincerely hope you do. Or if you disagree, I hope it’s because you’re a bolshie motherfucker yourself, and think that shitstorms are exactly what’s called for in the face of prejudice. That’s fair enough. Still, even amongst those who agree, I’m kind of curious, to be honest, as to how much these sort of issues hit others in the gut and how much this sort of result just gives… a warm glow of affirmation that, yes, we can all be nice to each other and make the world a nicer place.
When I first sent out the call for members for the Outer Alliance, this is exactly the sort of justice I hoped we’d achieve. Did I think it would happen so swiftly and within our first few weeks of being? Well, no. But that it did just brought us together and affirmed that yes, this group is needed and is absolutely essential in the speculative writing community.
Thank you, Hal! And thank you all for being part of the Outer Alliance.
OA members fill new anthology September 29, 2009
Posted by mbranesf in : announcements, publications, queer-friendly publishers , add a commentPlease indulge me in a little bit of bragging about a very special group of people that I am having the honor of publishing.
The pre-order period for M-Brane SF’s anthology of queer sf, Things We Are Not, began this week, and I wish to draw some extra attention to its writers, nearly all of whom are Outer Alliance members. Several posts at the TWAN blog from September 17 onward, introduce the book’s writers and their stories. Some of these writers have been writing and publishing for a long time, while some are fairly new. They are all wildly imaginative and, as a group, represent the great diversity of the Outer Alliance’s membership. So, even though this project started well before the founding of the Alliance, I am delighted that the timing of the publication is such that I am able to proudly print the Alliance’s Mission Statement on its acknowledgements page.
Followers of artist and writer Mari Kurisato’s work, will recognize her vivid style in the book’s cover art. Newer members of the Alliance may be unaware that Mari is also the designer of the Outer Alliance logo and its various banners and badges.
Lee Wind wins GLBT book blogger award September 16, 2009
Posted by mbranesf in : announcements , 2commentsOuter Alliance Member Lee Wind’s blog “I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read?” , focused principally on queer-related YA books, is now, officially, an award-winning blog. Lee won the Book Blogger Appreciation Week “Best GLBT Review Blog” blue ribbon. Huzzah!
Lee Wind
Outer Alliance folks will want to visit Lee’s site frequently for its wealth of great information.