Welcoming new Mysterion staff!

If all goes according to plan, these two will be joining the Mysterion team in late June. Maxwell and Marie don't know too much about editing yet, but we expect them to bring a lot of youthful energy and enthusiasm to their new role.

Kristin and Donald are flying down to Louisiana to pick them up, and to visit Donald's family for the first time in a year and a half. It will be our first trip together since before the pandemic. Kristin is a bit worried about missing part of Massachusetts' all-too-brief strawberry season, especially since she's growing her own this year, and Donald will miss our high-speed internet and his gaming computer (though he's willing to give his new Nintendo Switch a try). But it's definitely good to be able to see family again in person, finally, without having to worry too much about COVID (Donald is fully vaccinated and Kristin is two days away).

First vet visit, which they enjoyed about as much as you would expect.

We've now responded to all stories submitted in January, so if you sent us something and haven't heard back, please let us know. As usual, we'll be open to submissions again for the month of July.

If you're a horror fan, be sure not to miss our most recent story! In Hannah Onoguwe's "Breaching the Distance", an expectant mother's confrontation with malevolent forces challenges the faith she thought she had lost long ago.

Later this month, we'll have "The Cure", from A.J. Cunder, about a woman's quest to unlock the secret of immortality, and Death's determination to stop her. 

Our featured artwork doesn't usually correspond to the stories it accompanies, but we think the current art on our home page, "Death and the Lady", is an especially good match for A.J. Cunder's story. To see more work from Greek artist John Tsilikas, be sure to check out his portfolio on Art Station!

Although we only use 3 or 4 pieces of art each year, we are always interested in seeing artists' portfolios. You can find instructions on how to submit them under our Art Submission Guidelines. Because we use so little art, and only know a few weeks or months ahead of publication what we're looking for, we're not able to respond promptly with a definite "yes" or "no" to art submissions. We do look at every portfolio (as long as you don't require us to enter a password to view your work, or Like or Follow you on social media). Then, when we're looking for new artwork, we go through what artists have sent us to see if anything catches our eye, particularly looking for work that might be a good fit for the stories we'll be publishing once it's featured on our site.

PATREON

Last month we promised to skip asking for money this month if enough people signed up for our Patreon. The bar we set was a net increase of at least 5 subscribers and $10/month.

Sadly, although we did meet the financial goal, with an additional $25/month, we only saw 1 additional subscriber. So this will not be the month that we skip asking readers to support us. The offer is still open for next month! And thank you, everyone who signed up or increased their pledge. It means a lot to us.

We currently have 21 active Patrons, contributing a total of $232/month. This is about what it costs us to publish a 3000-word story. However, our average story length is closer to 5000 words, so we still have a long way to go before breaking even.

The next funding goal we're trying to meet is $275/month. Once we reach it, we'll publish an additional 2 stories each year. This is only $43 above our current funding level: 2 new Patrons at $25/month would get us there, or 16 at $3/month, or something in between. $3/month gets you early access to all the fiction we publish, with some additional perks at higher levels, but even $1/month allows you to participate in our monthly Discord chats with Mysterion editors and authors and unlocks exclusive subscriber content on our Patreon page. (We used to joke that this exclusive subscriber content was mostly pictures of Kristin's vegetable garden and Donald's video game reviews. Now we'll have an endless supply of cat pictures to include as well; but we do also discuss publishing, Christian media, other fantasy and science fiction we're reading, and much more!)

It definitely feels like summer here now, with temperatures in the 90s (30s for all you non-Americans). Massachusetts has lifted all remaining pandemic restrictions except for mask requirements in certain settings (transportation and healthcare being the most relevant ones for us). Our church's three weekly services are all in-person again, and we plan to start attending next Sunday. We certainly don't take any of this for granted, and we don't know what the future will bring. But we're looking forward to a more "normal" summer, to seeing family and friends, and to finally tossing those N95 masks we've been reusing for months. (We'll probably keep the unused ones around. Just in case.)

Take care, and don't forget that we open to fiction submissions again on July 1st!

And one more cat picture before we go:

Maxwell and Marie napping with their half-siblings.

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