December 2024

We are pleased and relieved to announce that we did finish reviewing stories received during our July submission window, almost in time to meet our self-imposed deadline of November 30th. 

Of the 298 stories submitted, we selected nine. We were only planning to accept seven, but there were two Christmas stories we really liked, so we accepted seven stories to publish between January and July, and two Christmas stories to publish at the end of next year. Unfortunately, since we prefer to only consider Christmas stories submitted in January (we've tried to make this clearer in our submission guidelines, for future reference), this means that we are not open to Christmas stories again until January 2026. (If you send us a Christmas story we like before then, we will invite you to resubmit it in January 2026. Probably.)

This also means, unfortunately, that we won't be able to accept as many stories from our next submission period, in January 2025. We usually choose seven, but since we already have two lined up, we'll only be able to pick five or six. Unless we see an unexpectedly steep increase in our monthly Patreon support, of course!

Years of reiterating that we don't consider the presence of angels sufficient Christian content to meet our guidelines seems to have, finally, resulted in a decline in submissions featuring angels. Catholic priest protagonists are still very popular, though. We realize that we're sending mixed messages by saying "too many Catholic priest stories!" and, at the same time, continuing to publish them. (We accepted three from the last submission window alone.) But there were multiple stories about Catholic priests that made it to the short list and didn't get accepted primarily because we already had too many. 

We're seeing fewer stories with dead protagonists, but more stories about demonic possession and deals with the devil (or other demons). We'd like to see more stories about missionaries who aren't Catholic priests, ideally written by authors who actually know some missionaries in real life. We just accepted a story about a recently retired, widowed female medical missionary, which we were delighted to see (we loved the story for other reasons too, of course); but most Protestant missionaries are married parents (these days, often in interracial marriages) whose children live with them while they're abroad. We're not sure we've ever seen that missionary demographic represented in our story submissions. (To be fair, speculative fiction protagonists in general skew rather more toward singleness than is true of most human populations, and young children introduce narrative complexity that a short story might not need; but it still leads to a focus on stories that don't represent the aspects of setting that were supposed to be realistic all that well.)

Winter has arrived in eastern Massachusetts, if not in snowfall then at least in cold. The fall often drags on here for a while--we don't tend to get any frost until the week of Halloween or even later--and then the weather shifts to "definitely cold now!" sometime in mid- to late November.

Of course, it's all relative. By "definitely cold", we mean, "it stays below 40 F (4 C) for days at a time!" This may not impress those in chillier climes. But, the ground surface is frozen, and Kristin's garden has wrapped up for the season.

Harvested on November 25th, the day after Thanksgiving, in anticipation of the season's first hard freeze.

MYSTERION FOR CHRISTMAS

Have you started your Christmas shopping? Mysterion makes a wonderful gift for the fantasy and science fiction readers on your list, especially those drawn to Christian themes and ideas (and who are not unnerved by a somewhat broader perspective on what sort of language and content is appropriate for "Christian" fiction than would be found in a typical Christian bookstore).

Although it's hard to "gift" someone an online magazine that has no paywall, you can still buy copies of our two anthologies, and Amazon will ship them wherever they need to go (or deliver them to someone's Kindle or phone, for digital versions). The original Mysterion anthology includes stories that you probably can't find anywhere else, from before we switched to an online magazine format. Mysterion 2 includes all the fiction we published here in 2018 and 2019. Both are available in paperback and eBook formats. Most people buy them from Amazon, but you can also get them from a few other retailers.

 

COMING SOON...

While it's not a Christmas story, exactly, our December story hits many of the popular holiday themes around family and acceptance. In Miranda Miller's "Changeling Child", Marta's curiosity leads her to try to befriend the fairy who attends her church, even though everyone knows God and fairies aren't on speaking terms. Appearing here on December 23rd!

...TO AN AMAZON PAGE NEAR YOU

In 2025, beginning with the January and February stories, we're going to start offering digital "issues" of the magazine as individual purchases on Amazon. For $2.99, you'll be able to buy a Kindle eBook every two months of the stories that we've just published in the online magazine.

Until now, the only way to acquire the eBook version of our fiction content has been to subscribe to our Patreon at $10+/month. Going forward, you'll also have the option of buying a few issues here and there with no ongoing subscription. Perhaps there's an author you especially like (or are related to), and want a copy of the issue they appeared in. Or maybe you really liked a particular set of stories and want to gift Kindle versions to multiple people. Starting in February, you'll be able to do so!

Of course, we do hope that people continue subscribing on Patreon, as it's our most significant source of funding for the magazine (besides Donald's salary from his day job). To encourage Patreon signups, all our stories will still be published first on Patreon. Subscribers at $10+/month levels will get these eBooks on the first of the month every two months. On the first day of each month, subscribers at $3+/month levels will get that month's stories emailed to them (or will be able to read them on our Patreon page). Finally, in the fourth week of even-numbered months (February, April, etc.), once all the stories from the eBook have appeared here in our online magazine, the eBook will also be available on Amazon (we'll add an image and link to our sidebar, plus a page with links to back issues).

We do hope to eventually make back issues of older eBooks available as well, but since we're always behind on almost everything (you'll notice that we still don't have the 2020-21 anthology published), it will probably take a while. Though if we see a lot of sales, we might prioritize it!

SEE YOU IN THE NEW YEAR!

We will be open to submissions again on January 1st, as usual (remember, please don't send us Christmas stories this year!). If your story is seasonal, keep in mind that we'll be looking for material to publish between July and November.

Wishing all who celebrate a joyful Advent season and a Merry Christmas! 

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