The Future Fire

[Djibril]

Jocelyn Koehler posted an interview with me, about the past and future of SF/F, over on the Team Blood blog this week.

[Djibril]

This may seem tangential, but you should read this lovely short-short story from Ernest Hogan, “A Low Ride with Victor Theremin”, over at his Mondo Ernesto blog. Brilliant, and hilarious, and good-natured to a fault as always!

[Djibril]

Reposting this link from Stephen's thread:

The Future Fire fundraiser! – a post about our friends at The Future Fire, who are raising money to fund a tenth anniversary special

There have been a few other posts, stories, interviews etc. posted recently, which I'll try to summarise in a post here soon. Thank to everybody for the support.

[Djibril]

We're running another little writing contest over at the TFF Press blog, this time with some lovely books by Stephanie Saulter and Jennifer Marie Brissett to give away. Simply write a flash story (under 500 words) on the theme of the number ten (ten years, ten fingers, ten-legged beasts…), tweet or FB a link to it along with the #TFFX hashtag and a plug for our fundraiser. Eligible stories will be read by Stephanie and by Lori Selke, and a winner will be announced next week.

Full rules at http://press.futurefire.net/2015/08/writing-contest-for-tffx-celebration.html.

I look forward to reading the stories. Good luck!

[Djibril]

Over on the Skiffy and Fanty blog, I was invited to talk about My Superpower, and how it helps me to do what it is that I do…

[Djibril]

The formidable, inestimable, indefatigable, incomparable and indefinable Peter Tennant, of Black Static fame, but previously known for running the Whispers of Wickedness Forums and writing almost 200 chilling short stories, has been kind enough to run an interview with me and publish it at the Black Static blog over on the TTA website: http://ttapress.com/1855/the-future-fire-ten-years-on/

A bit of history, there…

[Djibril]

We ran a couple of author/artist double-interviews in the TFF-X series last week:

• Cécile Matthey and Rebecca Schwab discuss the writing and illustrating of the lovely story “thick on the Wet Cement”
• Robin E. Kaplan (The Gorgonist) and Rebecca Buchanan discuss the wonderful “Sophie and Zoe at the End of the World”

Both Cécile and Robin are offering limited art perks in the TFF-X fundraiser, which is open for about another 24 hours. I strongly recommend them—they're both fabulous illustrators.

[Djibril]

I just sent out the following message to all backers of the TFF-X fundraiser:

Many thanks to all of you who supported the TFF-X fundraiser, which exceeded its target by nearly $300 at the beginning of the month; you have made this anthology possible, and freed up some much-needed funds to increase the pay rate for Fae Visions of the Mediterranean as well.

That's right, we have as a result of the generosity of our backers raised the pay-rate for our Mediterranean-themed horror anthology to €30 per short story or poem, and €15 per flash story. The Fae Visions of the Mediterranean CFS is still open for a few more weeks, and we’re especially keen to hear from any authors from the Mediterranean region, in particular those from North Africa, the Near East or Turkey, who are currently very underrepresented. It’s going to be a great anthology whatever happens, but it has to be representative of the region if it’s to mean anything.

[Djibril]

The TFF-X anthology, celebrating ten years of The Future Fire, will contain a mix of reprint or revised stories from the last decade, plus a healthy handful of previously unpublished stories, poems, flash fiction, and experimental styles to give an idea of the sort of thing we hope TFF will do more of in the next ten years. If you fancy trying your hand at a story written in a non-traditional mode (review of a non-existent book/film, roleplaying-game module, short comic, radio play), we have a call open for very short pieces, roughly 500-1000 words, for the next month or so. See the TFF-X call for experimental stories for details and suggestions.

Submission guidelines summary:

Length: approx. 500-1000 words (poems 40 lines, comics, 2-4 pages)
Submissions: email as attachment to fiction@futurefire.net
Deadline: October 31, 2015, or sooner if filled
Pay rate: $20 (USD) per story, poem, comic, etc.

[joshua rainbird]

The TFF-X anthology, celebrating ten years of The Future Fire, will contain a mix of reprint or revised stories from the last decade, plus a healthy handful of previously unpublished stories, poems, flash fiction, and experimental styles to give an idea of the sort of thing we hope TFF will do more of in the next ten years. If you fancy trying your hand at a story written in a non-traditional mode (review of a non-existent book/film, roleplaying-game module, short comic, radio play), we have a call open for very short pieces, roughly 500-1000 words, for the next month or so. See the TFF-X call for experimental stories for details and suggestions.

Submission guidelines summary:

Length: approx. 500-1000 words (poems 40 lines, comics, 2-4 pages)
Submissions: email as attachment to fiction@futurefire.net
Deadline: October 31, 2015, or sooner if filled
Pay rate: $20 (USD) per story, poem, comic, etc.

I have some ideas to sub that would combine image and words - could you specify dpi, image dimensions and any limitations on greyscale or colour and bytes
thanks 

[Djibril]

Hi Joshua, thanks for the question! We're flexible about formats and media, but the basic parameters we're working within are:

• Black and white only; images will be printed on pulp paper, so need to be reasonably high contrast (but plenty of shades of grey are fine)
• The page size is 6" x 9", so images need to fit within (and ideally fill) borders of about 11.5cm x 19cm; the higher resolution you can send the better—we'll resize/format as needed
• For image work only, we're happy to look at a draft/pitch before you work up the full-quality piece, if you prefer

Look forward to seeing anything you come up with!

[joshua rainbird]

thank you 

[Djibril]

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”
—Maya Angelou

Issue 2015.34

• ‘Causeway’, A.J. Fitzwater (illustrated by Pandalion Death)
• ‘The Day the Books Left’, Simon Kewin (illustrated by Michael Csontos)
• ‘Godwin's Law’, Curtis C. Chen (illustrated by Miguel Santos)
• ‘It Kills Your Heart’, Anthony M. Abboreno (illustrated by Carmen Moran)
• ‘Crescendo’, Omi Wilde (illustrated by Martin Hanford)

EPUB, Mobi and PDF versions coming soon.

[Djibril]

The open call for the Fae Visions of the Mediterranean anthology is now closed, and we're drawing up the table of contents from the many excellent stories we received as we speak. There was a shortage of stories actually from the southern/eastern coasts of the Mediterranean region, though, so we're still open if any authors from North Africa or the Near East (or for that matter Turkey, Malta, etc.) would like to send us horror or spooky sea stories up to 5000 words. Call for stories is at http://press.futurefire.net/p/fae-visions.html.

Please spread the word!

[Djibril]

We're also keeping the Fae Visions of the Mediterranean CFS open for a little while longer for microfiction (500-1000 words) written in the languages of the Mediterranean: if you write (or know anyone who writes) horror, fantasy, sea or ghost stories in Portuguese, Spanish, Català, French, Corsican, Italian, Sardinian, Sicilian, Slovenian, Croatian, Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Coptic, Tifinagh, Berber, Maltese, or any other language spoken by a people whose ancestors stared out across Mare Nostrum with fear and longing in their hearts, please answer our call. Ask your grandmother to write down her nightmares for us. Dig out war stories from a pirate ancestor. Show our CFS to a shipwrecked refugee. We want all the stories in all the languages!

press.futurefire.net/p/fae-visions.html