Dear Keech,

The latest issue of Fantasy, which features a story by you, is now available for purchase. You can find the full issue details here: issue link (right click, select copy)

If you clickthrough to the issue, you can see what else is in this month’s issue alongside your story. This month’s issue is (or will be shortly) also available on Amazon, BN.com, Kobo, and Weightless Books. Links to the third-party seller editions can be found on the following page, if you click on the Purchase/Subscribe button: subscribe link (right click, select copy)

We would appreciate it if you could spread the word about your story being available in the ebook edition now, and then also when it’s available online to read for free later in the month (except for novellas and novel excerpts, which are exclusive to the paid editions of the magazine). Also, feel free to let people know that they can subscribe for just $23.88/year.

For those of you whose content will be appearing in the online edition of Fantasy, we’ll be emailing you again the week your story goes live online with a link to your story when it’s available on the Fantasy website. At the end of this email you’ll find the posting schedule for when the various content for this issue will be posting on the Fantasy website.

Thanks for being part of Fantasy!

Dear Keech,

Thank you for sending us ‘Wodehouse Blues’ yesterday. I’m sorry to say it’s not quite the right fit for TSS as we skew to CNF that is on the more personal side – although it was a thoroughly enjoyable read and sent me on a hunt through via Google to find out more about the mysterious Guy Preston. 

As a whole, I felt the piece might benefit from more focus on either a tighter exploration of who the author is or a more academic close read of one of his short stories – The Inn, perhaps. That said, the digressive nature of your work does have a charm and may well suit other journals – in particular those with an emphasis on horror etc. 

I hope you may find the above useful – they are thoughts and suggestions only. As someone who writes and submits work myself, it’s worth repeating that it’s very much a subjective matter.

If you’ve found the experience of submitting to TSS a good one, I would be very grateful if you could share this on any social media you have, as well as with writer friends and colleagues. We’ve been on hiatus for a few years and so we’re looking to spread the word that we’re publishing once again. Any help is appreciated. We’ve also to a tip jar to cover website costs & coffee and are always grateful for any help in that direction too.

Thank you again for sending us your work and have a lovely weekend,

TSS Publishing

The Universal Field Operative (UFO) wants you! The creation of the universe explained. Partially. Forthcoming in April.

Get the message?

A brief stroll down memory lane. An introduction to the secret history of Transportation Demand Management. A paean to the many contributions of Mel Webber to planning sciences. Take your pick!

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a short fiction contest sponsored by Cast of Wonders. Although I did not win, it was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot, both about the publisher, and the market for YA speculative short fiction.

There are 206 bones in the human body. Keech Ballard rides again, this time as a flashy purveyor of incipient horror inspired by a moral sense of outraged sensibilities.

There are 238 pages in Step into the Light, a new anthology of daylight horror from Bag of Bones Press, available in paperback or Kindle format from Amazon.

Join Keech and many others on a journey into night, I mean day, I mean daytime nighttime is the right time…

Click below to set yourself free.

Muhaha!

Where the drabble meets the haiku.

A new anthology from independent publisher Hiraeth, composed of 60 entries, two of which were composed by yours truly.

58. Mermaid Central

59. Unicorn Station

Writer Violet Paget, raised by unconventional British parents in the south of France, was an engaged feminist who always dressed à la garçonne.

She was also an extreme pacifist, held in suspense in England for the duration of the Great European Civil War to stifle her dangerous creativity and muzzle her outspoken voice.

Her books were benignly neglected for decades as an effective form of postmortem retribution until she was rediscovered by modern feminists beginning in the Nineties.

Her views on aesthetics may be greatly admired in certain circles.

Her somewhat more gruesome ideas about the nature and extent of eternal love lie well beyond the pale.

Amour dure. Dure amour.

Leroux was the author of such great classics of French literature as The Mystery of the Yellow Room and The Phantom of the Opera.

He died tragically of an acute urinary infection before he could enjoy the full fruits of his enormous and lasting success as the creator (or rather popularizer) of the Opera Ghost.

A long-standing mystery remains unsolved even to this day. Why is it that the French have so sadly neglected their favorite son’s undisputed masterpiece?

Erik (AKA the Phantom) has been filmed and staged repeatedly around the world over the last century, with Lon Chaney, Claude Rains, and Christopher Lee joined by a veritable host of equally distinguished also-rans in the heady race to portray the ugliest and most tragic antihero the world has ever seen.

Is it because Erik is so ugly in body, if not in spirit?

Is it because Christine is too beautiful to live on the inside, as well as the outside?

Is it because Raoul is so pitiful and weak as an alternative to the Spirit of Music?

Is it because the Persian is so dark, Eastern, and mysterious in his ways?

Is it because the Paris Opera, and its endless series of cellars beneath the level of the sunlit streets, reflects the soft underbelly of modern society in ways that make French intellectuals and their betters squeamish and uncomfortable?

In order to answer this question, all you have to do is ask.

The rat-catcher might know.

Better yet, why not ask the man/shade/shadow in the felt hat?

He undoubtedly has strong opinions on this very subject.