Penumbra Cover First Issue

Penumbra's first issue is set!

For our inaugural arts-themed issue, which goes on sale October 1, we've selected a group of fantastic authors. Larry Ivkovich's story The Turin Effect is our featured story. We also have Butterfly by Tom Brennan, The Square That Hides a Thousand Stories by Daniel Ausema, Vivid Rendering by David G. Blake, and Inked Upon Thee by Courtney Crites.

We selected these stories from a pool of over three hundred outstanding submissions, and are proud to kick off Penumbra with such a talented group of writers.

You can pre-order Penumbra's first issue on the Musa Publishing site beginning September 1, 2011 at the Musa Publishing website at www.musapublishing.com. You can also subscribe to Penumbra, which will be published monthly, at the same site.

Excitement Is Growing at Penumbra

It's kind of hard to blog right now. I want to act like a completely spoiled brat and bounce up and down on my chair yelling, "I know something you don't know! I know something you don't know! Neener neener neener!"



But I won't. I promise.



This weekend we'll be announcing the lineup of the inaugural issue of Penumbra. The first issue of any magazine is really important, especially to the people who decide which writers/stories to publish. You second guess your decisions. (Is this really the best story? What about...) You want to ignore things that you're paid NOT to ignore.



Like budgets. Or word counts.



And in the end, you just get all the stories together and fiddle with them, reading them over and over until you decide which arrangement is going to work the best. That pretty much encapsulates my night, and considering that I'm blogging at three in the morning should tell you how *not* easy this was.



But at last it's done. And not just THIS issue, but I have the next TWO done as well, which gets us through the end of the year. This afternoon we spent an hour going through cover art images and that got me stoked too. So tonight, then, I've been luxuriating in outstanding short fiction from writers all over the world. Experience levels run from debut authors who've never been published to established pros whose resumes make me very jealous.



Interested in joining them? Take a look at the special calls for themes Penumbra has set up.



Happy writing! And remember: keep an eye on this blog and the Penumbra website for the announcement of the writers in the first issue.

Penumbra launches on October 1, 2011.

PENUMBRA OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

Sports and games:

Have a football story with an interesting twist? Invent a bizarre game on another world? Or, did you have a game on this world go horribly wrong? Well, if your story is around 3k or under, we want to see it!

CALL ENDS SEPTEMBER 15, 2011.

Shakespeare:

We have a deep and abiding passion for the Bard and his works. So if you've reworked one of his plays into your story, or have Shakespeare as a character, or even if you write the story PAST his plays—as long as there's a speculative fiction twist, then it might find its way into this winter, 2012 issue.

CALL ENDS OCTOBER 31, 2011

Steampunk:

Create your best gizmos and gear up for the goggle-gouging fun that is steampunk. And yes, at Penumbra, gaslight fantasy counts. All steampunk, all the time—which means anything goes for this issue as long as it's firmly rooted in the subgenre.

CALL ENDS NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Musa EMag 2011 Issues, New Opportunities and Spec Fic Everywhere!

Over the past few weeks, we've been playing with several different directions for Penumbra EMag, the upcoming electronic magazine from Musa Publishing. It's not easy to put a publishing house and a magazine together at the same time. But...well...we like challenges. At the moment, this whole process is exhilarating. Reading and adjudicating submissions, playing with different stories for different issues, working on layout and design, viewing art—all of these processes have been a lot of fun, believe it or not.



Each issue will be themed. Some of those issues will just have the genre as the theme, but others will be centered around a concept, one that lends itself to all three genres we accept. For example, the issue we're releasing on October 1, 2011, to launch both the magazine and Musa will be an arts-themed issue. Every story deals with either music or painting or writing or dancing or scultping—you get the idea. I *personally* am so impressed by the beautifully written, evocative, outstanding works of shorter fiction in my final selection group that I get excited just thinking about it.



Not very editorial, you say? You need to meet more editors.



The November 1, 2011, issue is death-themed. Yeah, I know: that creates a broad spectrum I can choose from, but I like that. Besides, you can never have too much death, now can you? (That would be the spec fic hack in me talking. I have more fun writing a great death than anything else) The December 1, 2011, will feature stories involving travel (time travel included!).



Once we get into the beginning of 2012, we'll have our sports-themed issue—either spec fic treatments of real-life sports or created sports in other worlds/eras/societies. What better way to survive Super Bowl Sunday than with a jai alai game in Hell? And then, there's my particular favorite, the Shakespeare issue. Reworking Shakespeare into a different genre—hardcore sci fi Romeo and Juliet could be a lot of fun. If Sense and Sensibility can hook up with zombies, just think how much fun Hamlet performed with hamsters could be! Or, conversely, stories that deal with Shakespeare in other ways—like an urban fantasy that takes place at a Shakespearean festival. We're looking at an all-steampunk issue, a space opera issue, an homage to Ray Bradbury whose short story All Summer In A Day still has one of my favorite sentences ever:

It was as if, in the midst of a film, concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a peaceful tropical slide which did not move or tremor.

Let's just say the possibilities are endless. Speculative fiction is grand that way. (Authors—please don't submit for these potential themed issues until we issue a specific call for that issue. Thanks!)



In the next week or so, we'll be setting our lineup for each issue. One of the other exciting things we're doing with Penumbra is our Rising Talent free read. Every month, we'll select one of the manuscripts from a newer author that makes it to the later rounds of evaluation and publish it on our site for Penumbra fans to check out. That author will get paid a flat fee for the story—so yes, it's a sale!—and we'll introduce him or her to speculative fiction readers. We are also adjudicating art submissions for each issue. The art director will select her top five picks each month and use them in the magazine, and readers will be able to vote for their favorites. The artist who wins the monthly contest will get a cash prize of $50 and a commission for another piece of featured art in a future Penumbra issue.



Not too shabby.



So stay tuned. Keep an eye on what's going on. We'll list special theme submission calls, information about our authors and great deals for the readers. Excitement is building in the Penumbra offices—and hopefully that excitement is contagious.

*SPECIAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS*

Penumbra is seeking stories under 3k

For the following themed issues:



The Arts: Music, visual arts, theater—anything that pertains to the arts and speculative fiction, we want to see it.



Sports: Have a football story with a twist? Create a game on another world? If it's 3k or under, we'd like to see it!



Shakespeare: We have a particular and undying interest in the Bard—and any speculative fiction versions of his work OR spec fic stories that feature him as a character.



Call deadline: October 31, 2011. Please list the particular theme your story applies to in the subject line of your submission email.

Penumbra Art Contest

Send in your art.

Every month, the Art Director at Musa Publishing will evaluate speculative fiction art entries. Five entries will be chosen from each month's batch. Those five pieces of art will be used in an issue of Penumbra, and the readers will vote on their favorite.



The readers' choice artist will win $50 and the opportunity to create a featured art piece to be published in a subsequent issue. For details and to enter, please submit your art to the art director.



What to Send:

• Name
• Address
• City, State, Zip
• Email
• website/blog
• File: jpg, gif, or png file, no larger than 600px in any dimension, at 72 dpi resolution

If you are sending in a camera photograph of your art, please make sure the image is clear and details stand out. Digital and physical mediums are accepted.



Also, please let us know how you found the contest.



Thank you for entering!



Kelly

Art Director ~ Musa Publishing

Welcome to Penumbra!

Penumbra is the speculative fiction ezine published monthly by Musa Publishing. At Penumbra, the Muses are clustered in the part of the psyche caught between the darkness and the light. Whether that results in hardcore science fiction or fantasy humor, psychological horror or a Steampunk poem with a twist is out of the Muses' control.



That control is in the hands of the author.



Penumbra publishes speculative fiction that always culminates in something unexpected—a flash of humor in the darkest tale or a fantasy piece that goes against the tropes—always something that hovers right on the periphery of the eclipse.



Penumbra's first issue will be released on October 1, 2011.