April 2023

We have now responded to all story submissions from January, so if you sent us something and haven't heard back, please reach out to us ASAP at editors@mysteriononline.com (after checking your spam folder, of course). Out of 272 stories submitted, we accepted 9.

Our next open submission window will be the month of July, and we'll be looking for stories to publish between January and June of 2024. (If you have something seasonal, especially Christmas or Halloween, we encourage you to wait until next January to submit it; if it's so obviously a Christmas story that it would be weird to publish it at another time of year, the best you can expect if you submit it to us in July is an invitation to try again in January.)

Many thanks to everyone who sent us stories to consider! All the stories we publish are chosen from these open submission windows in January and July, and we try to give every story the same chance, no matter who the author is or how many places they've been published already (if any). This doesn't mean that we read every single story all the way to the end, especially if it's clear after a page or two that it won't be a good fit. But it does mean that we approach each story with an open mind, hoping that we'll like it, and that we start reading your story before we look at your publication credits. And it also means that we don't fill any of our publication slots with stories by more established authors and/or friends of ours before the submission window opens. (Although you may see some names more than once, that just means that they keep sending us stories we like.)

We believe strongly that this policy helps us publish the best possible stories (that fit our submission guidelines), and makes us more accessible to newer and less established authors. What it doesn't do is help us attract readers by publishing stories authored by popular writers with large followings (because those authors are often too busy working on stories they were invited to submit to editors far more prestigious than us to be writing anything on spec, even if they are interested in exploring Christian themes).

Which means that we need your help! If you like the stories we publish, post about them on social media or tell your friends about Mysterion. Buy one of our anthologies as a gift for a friend or family member, or review them on Amazon or Goodreads if you've read them. Encourage your author friends to consider submitting their stories to us (assuming they fit our submission guidelines).

You could even consider signing up as one of our Patreon subscribers! That doesn't exactly help us get the word out (though the more subscribers we have, the more likely we are to show up in searches when people are looking for projects to support). But it does provide financial support that helps us pay our authors and artists. (Plus you can get early access to all our stories, and other great benefits!) We're down a bit from last month, currently at 21 Patrons and $200/month, so please consider signing up if you're not already a subscriber. Our most popular tier is $5/month, which comes with early access to the stories and free e-book copies of every anthology we publish, but you can sign up for as little as $1/month.

Our next Patreon funding goal is to reach $275/month, which will allow us to publish 16 stories a year instead of 14.

Current and Upcoming Stories

Our latest story is "MARY and Martha", by T. R. Frazier, a science fiction tale about a robot and a nursing assistant. Toward the end of this month (April 24th), look for Jamie M. Boyd's "Wicket 2.0": if dogs can come back to life, what else might be possible?

Feline Update

Our new cat Belle is down to one daily medication, from a maximum of five. She still has problems (and hates taking her medicine), but is in much better health than when we first brought her home.

Now if only we could get her out of the guest room! Baby steps. We got her a soft, warm cat tent to replace the pet carrier she had been sleeping in, and are hoping that, with time, we can start moving it around the house and her along with it.

Marie likes to keep an eye on us when we're working in the kitchen:

Maxwell prefers the camouflage approach. And naps.

Thank you for reading, and don't forget to return on April 24th for our next story, "Wicket 2.0"!

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