Up ahead in the distance I saw a shimmering light
This will be a long post - brace yourselves!
We’re getting down to the wire for submissions to the Gadgets & Artifacts issue. Tomorrow (Friday) is the deadline! We’ve got a fair number of submissions but we always want more!
Saturday is the release of issue 18, the Eastern issue. We’re extremely pleased with how this issue turned out. We did encounter a problem, though: We got the proof copy back and the cover was FAR too dark, to the point you could hardly see what was going on. We had to lighten it up and order a new proof. I shelled out the $ for extra-fast delivery, but it’s unlikely to arrive before release day. That means the print edition won’t be available until probably around May 3rd or so. I apologize for this: it was the result of illness, first our son’s, and then mine, that caused us to fall behind. I’ve been taking steps to keep it from happening again, even in the case of illness.
A big part of those steps I’ve been taking has been getting ahead - FAR ahead - in my CG work. I had some time this past week free, and I’ve been using it to get advance work done on every CG and SiMF project I can think of. The result is that I’ve advanced some projects so far, I’m literally months ahead of where I thought I’d be at the end of this month. I actually feel very discombobulated, because I keep thinking “ONO I FORGOT SOMETHING!”, but I really didn’t.
Part of this advance work was improving our preparation for future issues. I’ve reached the point where every issue through the end of our second year (issue 24) is as done as they can possibly be without having the actual content. This means that the actual building of each issue when we’ve chosen the content will be less time-consuming, which means a far lower chance of any delays.
I’ve also been working ahead on some other projects, including the eventual publication of RJ Astruc’s A Festival of Skeletons. We’re talking to an artist about the cover, and the layout/formatting is mostly done. The expected publication date is December 1, but we’ve got to have it finished well in advance so we can get it into the hands of reviewers. Kay’s done a wonderful job working with Astruc to edit the novel. I’m also working ahead on Crossed Genres Year Two, our second anthology. That one’s really jumping the gun though, since we won’t even know what’s going in the last issue (#24) until the beginning of October.
Speaking of issue 24: I just want to remind everyone, we’re doing another double-sized special to end our second year. This year’s theme will be Characters of Color, where the main character must be a CoC. We’re expecting high submissions for that issue but we’re also accepting twice as many for publication, so be sure to get yours in for that! Submissions for issue #24 will be accepted in September.
The Science in My Fiction blog has been chugging along. Exciting news - we were contacted by io9, the giant science/SF site. They asked if they could reprint an occasional SiMF post! We made arrangements, and the first reprint went up yesterday. We’re flattered that io9 thought so highly of SiMF’s work!
As you can see, we’re over 80% of the way to our Kickstarter goal for the Science in My Fiction contest! The contest only runs until the end of May - this is your ONLY chance to get a copy of the contest winners! Please help us get that last bit of the way - if for no other reason than so we can stop worrying about whether we’ll get there!
Finally, I want to mention that M-Brane SF #16 just came out. There’s a story by Kay in it! Go check it out!
Post title from “Hotel California” by the Eagles
Originally published at Crossed Genres. You can comment here or there.