Jason Sanford

Dead online magazines and journals

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the storySouth Million Writers Award. Hard to believe only a decade ago online magazines were so looked down upon by the literati that we had to start our own award to honor online-published fiction. Now online publishing and ebooks are all the rage. Go figure.

I'll be writing more about the award in the coming weeks, but until then I wanted to share a list collected by author Robert Laughlin. Robert went through the archives of the last nine MWA award cycles and collected those magazines and journals which have passed into the great literary afterlife, both in the last year and in the last ten years.

The reasons for this vary — sometimes the editors lost interest in their magazines or no longer had the free time to donate. In a few instances, editors passed away. Others shut down their magazines in fits of angst and anger at whatever injustice they believed was keeping their magazine from reaching wider audiences. Others were shut down by their corporate owners because they didn't generate enough revenue (yeah, I'm looking at you, Sci-Fi Channel, now known by the disease sounding name of Syfy).

WARNING! BLATANT PRODUCT PLACEMENT! In case you're interested, I touch more upon the nature of online magazines in the introductions to my two recent anthologies of MWA stories: Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy, which focuses on SF/F stories, and Million Writers Award: The Best New Online Voices, which highlights non-genre stories. The anthologies also collect stories from some of these defunct magazines (and are available in ebook editions for only $2.99).

So what happens to the stories which weren't collected in anthologies or reprinted elsewhere? Hard to say. Some of these journals can be found in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Maybe some day a reader will stumble up a long-ignored story and bring it to the attention of the larger world. But I also know that some of the stories published in these dead online magazine are gone forever. When I was editing my MWA anthologies there were several stories I wanted to reprint but I could no longer locate either them or their authors.

Such stories now exist only in the minds of those who once read them.

Now that we're done with such a depressing thought, here are the lists. Please note that all of these magazines and journals are named because they placed at least one short story on the listings of MWA notable stories of the year. If there are any errors or missed online magazines, please add them into the comments below.

MWA JOURNALS THAT CLOSED IN 2012

• Cezanne’s Carrot
• Dark Sky
• dispatch litareview
• Dragonfire
• The Dublin Quarterly
• elimae
• Girls with Insurance
• In the Snake
• kill author
• LITnIMAGE
• Lost Magazine
• Night Train
• (parenthetical note)
• Rough Copy
• Saltimbanque Review

MWA JOURNALS THAT CLOSED BEFORE 2012

• 3711 Atlantic
• 42opus
• 5_Trope
• Aberrant Dreams
• Abjective
• Absent Willow Review
• Afterburn SF
• Alsop Review
• Arkansas Literary Forum
• Arriviste Press
• Atomjack Magazine
• Baen’s Universe
• Big News
• Blithe House Quarterly
• Bosphorus Art Project Quarterly
• Bullfight Review
• Cautionary Tale
• Cherry Bleeds
• Conversely
• Coyote Wild
• Crime Scene Scotland
• DayBreak Magazine
• dead drunk dublin
• deathlings.com
• The Deepening
• Demolition
• Dogmatika
• The Edge of Propinquity
• Edit Red
• Eleven Bulls
• The Exquisite Corpse
• Fantasy Magazine (merged with Lightspeed Magazine)
• Farrago’s Wainscot
• Fawlt
• Fiction Attic
• Fiction Warehouse
• Fiction Weekly
• Figdust
• FlatmanCrooked
• A Fly in Amber
• Fortean Bureau
• Gator Springs
• Gowanus
• Green Integer Review
• Hardluck Stories
• Helix
• The Hub
• The Infinite Matrix
• Infinity Plus
• Ink Pot
• Kennesaw Review
• The King’s English
• Lamination Colony
• The Land-Grant College Review
• laurahird.com
• Lit Rag
• Lone Star Stories
• Me Three
• MWU: Muslim Wake Up!
• Nerve
• Newtopia Magazine
• Noneuclidean Café
• Outsider Ink
• The Paumanok Review
• PERIGEE: Publication for the Arts
• Pindeldyboz
• The Pittsburgh Quarterly Online
• Plaztik Press Literary Magazine
• Poets & Artists
• Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k)
• Potion
• The Quarterly Staple
• Raging Face
• Reflection’s Edge
• Rouse
• Rumpus
• Salon.com (listed b/c they no longer publish fiction)
• SCIfiction
• Serendipity
• SFReader.com
• Shred of Evidence
• Small Spiral Notebook
• Socialist Review
• Southern Gothic Online
• Southern Hum
• Spoiled Ink
• Steel City Review
• Susurrus: The Literature of Madness
• Taint
• Thieves Jargon
• Thirst for Fire
• Three Candles
• Thunder Sandwich
• Tryst
• Twelve Stories
• Velvet Mafia
• Verbsap
• View Unplugged
• Weekly Reader
• Writers’ Bloc
• You Must Be This Tall to Ride

Million Writers Award anthology ebooks only $2.99

The ebook editions of my Million Writers Award anthologies, which are retrospective collections featuring ten years worth of award-honored stories, are temporarily marked down to only $2.99.

The first anthology, Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy, focuses on SF/F stories, while the second, Million Writers Award: The Best New Online Voices , highlights non-genre stories. 

To order the ebook editions at this discounted price, check out the links below.

•  Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy
  Kindle edition
  Nook edition
• Million Writers Award: The Best New Online Voices 
  Kindle edition
  Nook edition 

Winners of the 2012 storySouth Million Writers Award

Here they are — the winners of this year's storySouth Million Writers Award. 

• 1st Place: "The Mill Pond" by xTx (from StoryGlossia)
• 2nd Place: "On Familiar Terms" by Kelly Cherry (from Blackbird)
• Honorable Mention: "The Butcher's Chimes" by Micah Dean Hicks (from Menda City Review)

Thanks to everyone who nominated stories and voted in this year's award. And thanks also to our great donors. This year's prizes include:

• $500 for the overall winner, plus a $100 gift certificate from ThinkGeek
• $250 for the runner-up / second place winner
• $100 for the honorable mention winner plus a $50 gift card to Powells.com, sponsored by writingprompts.us
• In addition, all three winners will receive free books from Dzanc Books (who also generously contributed to the overall prize money)

If you enjoyed this year's award, be sure to check out our two retrospective anthologies of Million Writers Award stories. For complete information, including how to order, go here for the SF/F anthology and here for the New Online Voices anthology.

In small things of note

One of my favorite books while studying archeology was In Small Things Forgotten, an exploration of how the little things we leave behind tell others so much about our lives.

Here are a few small things of note for today:

• The public vote for the storySouth Million Writers Award is now closed. I'll release the results in the evening on Monday, Aug. 13.
 

• Asimov's Science Fiction has accepted a second story from me. "Monday's Monk" is my first SF story set in Thailand and draws heavily on my experiences there as a Peace Corps Volunteer. When I know the story's publication date I'll let everyone know. Many many thanks to Sheila Williams for accepting the story.
 

• SF Signal has published the English edition of my essay "Opening the SF Translation Pipeline to America," which was originally published in the Czech magazine XB-1. Thanks to Aliette de Bodard, Nick Mamatas, and Ken Liu for their insights on the topic and to both XB-1 and SF Signal for publishing the essay.

 

Million Writers Award vote extended by one day

Tonight at 11:59 pm Eastern time was supposed to be the end of the public vote for this year's storySouth Million Writers Award. However, the storySouth website went down for nearly a day last week, resulting in much anguish and emailing to me about the inability to vote.

To make up for this problem, I'm extending the public vote by one day. The voting will now end at 11:50 pm on Tuesday, Aug. 7. To vote go here.  For the most recent vote tally, go here.

This year we have nearly $1000 in cash prizes for the top three winners, along with

• A $100 gift certificate from ThinkGeek for the overall winner;
• Free books from Dzanc Books for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners (Dzanc Books also generously contributed to the overall prize money);
• A $50 gift card to Powells.com for the third place winner, sponsored by writingprompts.us.

 

Two weeks left to vote in the storySouth Million Writers Award

There are two more weeks to vote in the storySouth Million Writers Award. So far we've already had around 800 people vote in this year's contest. Don't forget the winning stories will receive nearly $1000 in cash and prizes.

As of yesterday, here are the vote standings for the ten finalists:

• "The Oracle" by Diana Abu-Jaber (From Guernica Magazine) — 8% of the vote

• "Home for the Holidays" by Kevin Carey (from Apple Valley Review) — 2%

• "On Familiar Terms" by Kelly Cherry (from Blackbird) — 29%

• "Awesome Like Us" by Elizabeth Ellen (from Barrelhouse) — 8%

• "Comedy Central" by Alicia Gifford (from Frigg Magazine) — 5%

• "The Butcher's Chimes" by Micah Dean Hicks (from Menda City Review) — 7%

• "Remainders" by Jess Lacher (Kenyon Review Online) — 4%

• "Mix Tape" by Jeff Landon (from Barrelhouse) — 5%

• "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" by E. Lily Yu (from Clarkesworld Magazine) — 5%

• "The Mill Pond" by xTx (from StoryGlossia) — 33%

Based on the results so far, this means "The Mill Pond" by xTx (from StoryGlossia) and "On Familiar Terms" by Kelly Cherry (from Blackbird) are battling neck and neck for the lead. However, it doesn't take that many votes to change the dynamics of the race. So be sure to read the stories and vote for your favorite.

Voting ends on Monday, August 6th. To vote, go here.

And don't forget Spotlight Publishing has released two retrospective anthologies of Million Writers Award stories. For complete information, including how to order, go here for the SF/F anthology and here for the New Online Voices anthology.

 

Million Writers Award anthologies now available; early reaction includes a Publisher's Weekly starred review

Spotlight Publishing has released my two Million Writers Award anthologies, which are retrospective collections featuring ten years worth of award-honored stories.

The first anthology, Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy, focuses on SF/F stories, while the second, Million Writers Award: The Best New Online Voices, highlights non-genre stories. 

Early reviews for the SF/F anthology are now coming in and — drum roll please — the book received a Publisher's Weekly starred review! To quote:

"Sanford, editor of the online literary journal storySouth, assembles a remarkable collection of science fiction and fantasy works, all originally published online and heralded in storySouth’s annual Million Writers Award contest (some are winners, others finalists and notables). ... Many of these stories have earned other awards and nominations, and they prove that online journals and magazines deserve readers’ respect and attention.

Wow!

In addition, Jamie Todd Rubin at Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show also review the SF/F anthology. He said: 

"We are living in a golden age of short science fiction and fantasy. Having read and written a great deal about classical Golden Age science fiction, having done a pretty good job keeping up with most of the short fiction markets today, I feel I can make this statement with some authority. If further evidence is required, however, I point to Jason Sanford's recent anthology,Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy."

Again, wow! Many thanks to both reviewers for the kind words.

Contributor copies have now mailed, and this weekend I'll be mailing out signed copies to anyone who pre-ordered (those would have gone out last weekend but the storm and power outage intervened). 

To order a print or ebook edition, click below.

•  Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy
• Million Writers Award: The Best New Online Voices