May 2024

If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?

We might wish the answer were pilgrims, as in the old joke that perhaps only our American readers have heard, but around here, it's apparently rabbits.

Not the Easter bunny

Let's hope this one enjoys the fresh green grass so much that it won't even think of snacking on Kristin's vegetable garden.

As far as submissions go, as of writing this, 27 remained unread, 2 more had been read by a first reader but not Donald or Kristin, 15 had been read and liked by either Donald or Kristin, and 8 had advanced to our final round of consideration (from which we are currently planning to accept 7 stories).

This puts us on track to make our final selections from the January stories by the end of May, but let's hope we aren't derailed by any new medical issues. In April it was COVID-19, which we both came down with for the first time. Now Kristin is recovering from gum graft surgery, a decidedly unpleasant procedure that serves as an effective reminder of why dentistry is such a common theme in horror fiction.

Please consider signing up for our Patreon, if you haven't already! We've had some new subscribers in the last month, which is great (thank you!), but are still down overall.

We have several subscription levels available. Our $10/month option is the nearest thing we have to a traditional magazine subscription. Every two months, you get an e-book of the stories that are about to appear on our website, in PDF and ePub versions. Here's the cover for the most recent issue:

The "budget" subscription tier, for $3/month, gets you each month's stories emailed to you at the start of the month in which they'll appear (or you can read them on our Patreon site). Or, if you really love what we're doing and would like to support us and our authors at a higher level, we have a $25/month option. (There are also $1, $2, and $5 levels, and even the $1 level comes with access to our Discord server where we host monthly chats for our authors and Patreon supporters; and, of course, all the higher levels include all the benefits for all the lower tiers.)

Our current featured story is Jessica Snell's "Her Neighbor's Keeper", about a post-apocalyptic future, unpredictable fairy magic, and our obligations toward even the most difficult people among us. This is Jessica's second story with us; in August of 2021, we published "Vocation", which is about a different post-apocalyptic future.

Later this month (on May 27th, to be precise), we are pleased to present Shawn Vincent Wilson's Mysterion debut, "Profane Intervention". A game store owner made a deal with a demon to save a friend, and now it's time to pay up!

Then, on June 24th, it's "The Beacon, the Swamp, and the Sacrifice", by Joshua Lampkins. A young priest in a future sect of Christianity purportedly founded by a time traveling apostle has been given the honor of planting a sacred radio beacon in a remote swamp, but there's something fishy about this assignment. This is Joshua's first fiction publication not only with us, but anywhere, and we're thrilled to be able to share it with you.

Our cats Maxwell and Marie had their 3rd birthday in April. They continue to be cats, discovering new ways in which to be set. Marie now expects Kristin to go upstairs shortly after breakfast and spend some time petting and cuddling her, and will come into the kitchen and meow (loudly) if she thinks Kristin is taking too long cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Maxwell keeps trying to get into Donald's office so he can chew on the Cat 5 cable snaking out under the edge of the closet door (Cat 5 means it's for cats, right?).

Maxwell believes Kristin is paying too much attention to that other thing on her lap.

Marie is our toughest editor.

We'll be open to submissions again on July 1st, for anyone who has a story to share with us. Until then, we wish you a pleasant springtime; or autumn, for southern hemisphere readers. May your gardens remain rabbit-free, and your cats no more badly behaved than usual!

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