Another year, another submission window
Happy New Year, everyone! It's January, and that means Mysterion is open to fiction submissions. We look forward to reading your stories.
As a reminder, we're open to art submissions year-round. And, due to some new Patreon supporters, we now have the budget to showcase a fourth piece of art each year. We've only acquired three for 2019, thus far, so be sure to send us a link to your portfolio if you're interested in possibly seeing your work on our site later this year.
Of course, when we say "have the budget", that doesn't mean our Patreon funding is actually paying all our publishing expenses! We're currently receiving $171 per month, which covers about half of what it costs just for the fiction and artwork. The rest of it (plus all our administrative and advertising expenses) still comes out of our own earnings.
However, if you want to help support us on Patreon, it won't only go toward reducing our expenses. We'll also use the increased funding to bring you more stories and art. Right now, we're $54 short of our next funding goal. Once we reach that, we'll start publishing 16 stories a year instead of 14. Every contribution helps, even as little as $1 a month! So, if you appreciate what we're doing, please consider clicking over to our Patreon site and becoming a Patron today.
We've made a deliberate decision not to allow un-moderated comments, because it's the internet. If people want to have an un-moderated discussion about something, that's what Twitter and Facebook are for, right? (Of course, we're sufficiently un-famous that the worst thing we have to worry about in comments right now is link spam.)
If you're looking forward to more great fiction, we've finalized the publication schedule for January and February:
January 14th: "Lepers", Keyan Bowes
January 28th: "The City Above The Shelf", Frederick Gero Heimbach
February 25th: "Absence", Joanne Rixon
Don't forget, Patreon supporters at $3 a month and up get early access to all the fiction we publish! Support us on Patreon, and you could be reading some--or all--of those stories right now.
Why, yes, we did! Here's a list of all the new fiction we published last year, in order of publication date. Everything was below the 7500-word short story-to-novelette cut-off used by the major awards in the field.
"We Have Discerned a Potential Deal", J.P. Sullivan
"Job: A Fairy Tale of God, Satan, and Us", K.D. Azariah-Kribbs
"Prophet's Fire and Spindles of the Banshee", Méabh de Brún
"Change of Life", Duke Kimball
"When the Years Are Many", Gregor Hartmann
"The Apostle to the Sea", Stewart Moore
"A Halloween Hymn", Eric James Stone
"The Chora Gate", Stephen Case
("There Are No Echoes" and "A Relic Most Rare" were both reprints, and are not eligible for awards recognizing work first published in 2018.)
Wishing everyone a happy and blessed 2019!
Support Mysterion on Patreon!
As a reminder, we're open to art submissions year-round. And, due to some new Patreon supporters, we now have the budget to showcase a fourth piece of art each year. We've only acquired three for 2019, thus far, so be sure to send us a link to your portfolio if you're interested in possibly seeing your work on our site later this year.
Of course, when we say "have the budget", that doesn't mean our Patreon funding is actually paying all our publishing expenses! We're currently receiving $171 per month, which covers about half of what it costs just for the fiction and artwork. The rest of it (plus all our administrative and advertising expenses) still comes out of our own earnings.
However, if you want to help support us on Patreon, it won't only go toward reducing our expenses. We'll also use the increased funding to bring you more stories and art. Right now, we're $54 short of our next funding goal. Once we reach that, we'll start publishing 16 stories a year instead of 14. Every contribution helps, even as little as $1 a month! So, if you appreciate what we're doing, please consider clicking over to our Patreon site and becoming a Patron today.
The Great Comment Black Hole of 2018
It recently came to our attention that there were comments on stories from as far back as May still awaiting moderation. Sorry about that. We think we've accepted all the ones that weren't spam, and have fixed the issue that led to us not being notified of new comments.We've made a deliberate decision not to allow un-moderated comments, because it's the internet. If people want to have an un-moderated discussion about something, that's what Twitter and Facebook are for, right? (Of course, we're sufficiently un-famous that the worst thing we have to worry about in comments right now is link spam.)
Recent and Forthcoming Fiction
Our December story was Stephen Case's Orthodox space opera "The Chora Gate", which we found especially appropriate for the Advent season. Go read it now if you missed it earlier!If you're looking forward to more great fiction, we've finalized the publication schedule for January and February:
January 14th: "Lepers", Keyan Bowes
January 28th: "The City Above The Shelf", Frederick Gero Heimbach
February 25th: "Absence", Joanne Rixon
Don't forget, Patreon supporters at $3 a month and up get early access to all the fiction we publish! Support us on Patreon, and you could be reading some--or all--of those stories right now.
Award Eligibility
It's award nomination time in the SF world, and some of you may be wondering if Mysterion published any eligible stories in 2018.Why, yes, we did! Here's a list of all the new fiction we published last year, in order of publication date. Everything was below the 7500-word short story-to-novelette cut-off used by the major awards in the field.
"We Have Discerned a Potential Deal", J.P. Sullivan
"Job: A Fairy Tale of God, Satan, and Us", K.D. Azariah-Kribbs
"Prophet's Fire and Spindles of the Banshee", Méabh de Brún
"Change of Life", Duke Kimball
"When the Years Are Many", Gregor Hartmann
"The Apostle to the Sea", Stewart Moore
"A Halloween Hymn", Eric James Stone
"The Chora Gate", Stephen Case
("There Are No Echoes" and "A Relic Most Rare" were both reprints, and are not eligible for awards recognizing work first published in 2018.)
Arisia 2019
Donald and Kristin will be at Arisia again this year, January 18th-21st, at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. Donald is currently scheduled for 3 panels and a reading, Kristin for 6 panels and a reading. We'll post our schedules here as the convention gets closer. Unfortunately, we've decided not to have a party this year; but send us an email (editors (at) mysteriononline.com) if you're going to be there and would like to meet up with us.Wishing everyone a happy and blessed 2019!
Support Mysterion on Patreon!
I have signed up as a patron, but do you accept advertisements / newsitems re ongoing work? See jonahcoming.com/wolf-led-2/ for a complete Christian fantasy novel, published there in hope of acquiring a literary agent and a traditional publisher. Wolf Led - set in a different universe in the future - is intended as the first story in a saga intended to explain how Christianity became compromised by intolerance, injustice and fundamentalism on Earth - possibly leading to a prophesy of 'first contact' with an alien but beneficent world and then a second coming of Christ. Early chapters of Wolf Led would be available to Mysterion, but the work has been submitted also to HarperImpulse, an imprint of Harper Collins. What hope of Mysterion flagging up the novel soon, and jonahcoming.com , where another novel, set in the present - 'Wanting' - is ongoing - jonahcoming.com/wanting/ ?
ReplyDeleteHi Sean, and thank you for your support, we appreciate it. Unfortunately, we do not currently accept advertising, and we don't publish novel excerpts, only self-contained short stories of 9000 words or less. We would certainly consider a story set in the same world as your novel, if you wanted to send us one (see our Submission Guidelines page for how to do this), and if we accepted it, you would then have the opportunity to promote the novel in your author's bio section. Sometimes we review novels on the site, so if you're interested in a possible review, you could send it in .mobi format to the query email we provide on the Submission Guidelines page (we're not going to go to someone's website and read a novel there). We can't promise anyone a review, though, or to only say positive things about novels we review (though we don't tend to review anything we didn't like). We also can't promise to read everything sent to us for review, as--like all editors--we already have long lists of books we want to read. You might want to check out RealmMakers.net, as they have a lot of resources for Christian speculative fiction authors, including an annual conference where you can pitch your novel to professional agents and editors.
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