Happy New Year from The Penumbra Editor-In-Chief

2012 has been a great year for Penumbra.  Today, we're going to make the first day of 2013 even more exciting with a pair of announcements.

First off, we have now set the Best of Penumbra, Volume I anthology. A cross-section of Penumbra staffers, interns, and readers ranked their favorite stories to form a consensus top eleven.  These stories are as follows:

The Second Coming of Thogradorax by Andrew Kaye (Animals, April 2012)

Arrhythmia by Terra LeMay (Death Dec 2011)

The Jade Tiger by Rachael Acks (steampunk Mar 2012)

Song of Passing Grief by James Beamon (Steampunk Mar 2012)

The Princess's Kiss by Chuck Rothman (Fairy Tales, May 2012)

A Deed Without a Name by Nyki Blatchley (Shakespeare Feb 2012)

And When The Innocence Falls To The Floor by Damien W. Grintalis (Fractured Fairy Tales May 2012)

Cocklebur by Nathaniel Lee (Travel, November 2011)

The Square That Hides A Thousand Stories by Daniel Ausema (The Arts October, 2011)

The Reckoning by Bruce Golden (sports January, 2011)

The Memory of Huckleberries by Rebecca Birch (Native American Folklore, Sept 2012)

Musa will be releasing these outstanding stories in anthology form in early 2013. 

And second, today Musa Publishing is announcing a brand new project for lovers of speculative fiction to ponder as 2013 kicks off.

The Darkside Chronicles

 In the Empire of Dalriada lies a city of steam and electricity and aether, where mechanical horses pull carriages through the streets and grand airships float overhead, patrolling the skies--a city where alien eyes watch the world of man and enforce a great and deadly penalty for man’s uncaring treatment of the world.

Dissecting the city's spires and buildings is the Dark Cloud--a fifty-foot high wall of pollution and filth that separates Sunside from the Darkside. 

Sunside is a place of wonder and beauty, where airships made from glass as strong as steel and pride as strong as diamonds contend for supremacy of the town, floating among the peaks of the city’s skyscrapers and the nobles and the movers and shakers reside. 

And then there's Darkside, the part of the town beneath the cloud, where only the faintest stray beams of light penetrate, illuminating what little hope resides in the citizens who toil in the underground factories or the Great Steamworks that provide power to the city. As Southwatch enters a new age of conspiracy, magic, technology and war, the people who live in the shadow of the Dark Cloud must choose sides when the whole city goes up in flames. 

When the day of reckoning comes, on what side of the Dark Cloud will you stand?

Musa Publishing is pleased to announce the launch of The Darkside Chronicles, a steampunk-inspired shared world project for writers and lovers of speculative fiction.

In the tradition of great shared worlds of the past like Thieves' World, Borderlands, and The Fleet, Darkside Chronicles invites authors to incorporate their favorite speculative fiction genres into the steampunk-inspired city of Southwatch.  Musa is seeking stories from 35k and up to help expand this new universe.  The world was built by author Richard C. White (with works published in the Star Trek, Dr. Who, and The Incredible Hulk universes among others)in collaboration with multi-published fantasy author and Musa Editorial Director Celina Summers, resulting in a expansive and comprehensive bible as a foundation for the stories of Southwatch.We will consider stories of fantasy, science fiction, urban fantasy, romance, horror, and noir set in the steampunk-influenced city of Southwatch.

To request a copy of the bible, please send a query to editor@musapublishing.com.   Please add "Darkside Chronicles" to the subject line. Submission guidelines specific to the line are included within the universe bible; otherwise this line will be treated and contracted according to the same guidelines as all the other Musa books. . 

The Darkside Chronicles will open to submissions April 1, 2013.

The Darkside Chronicles will launch for readers in Summer, 2013. 

How It All Began

Today, we host a short Q&A with Randy Lindsay, "Not Fragile", and Edorado Albert, "Time Hoppers". Both talented authors and their work appeared in the November issue of Penumbra eMag.

Randy, when did you first realize you wanted to pursue writing as a career rather than a hobby?

It’s entirely possible that I live in a fantasy world of my own devising. Whenever a great idea pops into my head, I am convinced that there is a market for it – somewhere. So, it isn’t as much a matter of when I decided to pursue a writing career as it is a question of when I decided to start writing.

That happened while I was reading a book. I happened to disagree with many of the story telling decisions that the author made and discussed with one of my friends how I would have written it. When I finished, I thought I had a pretty good alternate story going on and started my journey as an author.

Several years of learning the craft and dozens of failed stories later I decided it was time to get serious about writing as a career. That would have been about three years ago. I started attending conferences to network within the industry. I started my blog so it could serve as a media platform once my stories started to be published. And I started submitting my stories.

What I find most interesting is that while it took a while to get here, things are really popping for me now. Right on the heels of my sale to Penumbra I had three more stories accepted for publication and will be coming out in 2013. I appreciate Penumbra opening the flood gates for writing career.

Edoardo, when did you first realize you wanted to pursue writing as a career rather than a hobby?

The first thing I can remember wanting to be was a paleontologist. When I realised that, unfortunately and despite the hopes raised by Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, all the dinosaurs really were dead, I switched to zoology. Then, an astronaut, a physicist, the President of the United States (abandoned when I found out that, not being American, I couldn't actually be president), an engineer and various other ideas in a rather dizzying succession. However, the only constant through all of this was reading.

I read - all the time. I even got told off as a seven-year-old for sneaking a book into a lesson and reading it under the desk because I couldn't wait to find out what happened (it was one of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books and to this day I will hear no calumny against her). So, in the end, I realised there was a thread through my life: words. And I began to pursue them. It has, though, been a long, slow slog - some thirty (30!) years of learning, being rejected, learning some more, making connections, getting rejected, and, hopefully, learning even more.

Randy Lindsay worked in the Hobby-Game industry for several years as a game designer and is now a stay-at-home dad looking to establish himself as an author. He writes Fantasy, SF, and is working on a Murder-Comedy. His short fiction has appeared in City of the Gods anthology and now Penumbra with upcoming stories in the Once Upon An Apocalypse anthology and the second City of the Gods anthology.

Learn more about Randy on his website and blog where he also writes on topics related to the craft of writing and offers movie reviews.

The responses to Edoardo Albert’s work rather prove what he argues. The stories, the books, the articles, have drawn some compliments, but the best response ever, which saw a friend rolling on the ground, helpless with laughter, was a lonely-hearts ad. It was probably the bit about tickling the belly of a wolf that did it.

Find Edoardo Albert’s books (he’s particularly proud of Northumbria: The Lost Kingdom which has just been published) and stories via his website although the lonely-hearts ad will not be making an appearance in the foreseeable future). Connect with him through his blog, Twitter or Facebook.

From All of Us at Penumbra eMag

We Wish You and Yours

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

What's On Your Reading List for 2013?

by Dianna L. Gunn

The new year is almost upon us, and as 2012 comes to a close many people are re-examining their lives and creating lists of "resolutions"--things they want to do to make their lives better in 2013.

I have my own list of "resolutions", but it isn't my only list for 2013. I also have another kind of list: a reading list for the year ahead. It consists of all kinds of stories, from speculative short fiction to novels in all genres. Some are books I've been asked to review on my blog, others are books by friends, still others are on the list because I believe I can learn from them. A few are on the list entirely for pleasure.

One of the things on my reading list is actually twelve things—the twelve issues of Penumbra we'll be producing next year. And I'm not just saying that because I work here—I'm planning to read the next several issues of Penumbra because I've enjoyed every single issue we've produced so far. Our editorial committee selects only the best stories, and our columns by Lori Basiewicz and Richard White are not to be missed. Most issues come with an author interview and feature article to boot, and if you're interested in finding out more about our deal with Gary K. Wolf for Who Wacked Roger Rabbit, the next couple of issues are not to be missed.

Whatever else is on your reading list for 2013, I hope you'll be adding twelve issues of Penumbra. A year's subscription only costs $36—a low price when compared to other speculative fiction magazines, made possible by our electronic model and low overhead—and if you purchase your subscription by January first, you'll get a second one free. What better way to celebrate the holidays than by purchasing matching subscriptions for you and a loved one so you can share stories all year?

To purchase your subscription now, please click HERE.

Dianna L. Gunn is a young Canadian fiction writer who specializes in dark fantasy. She also writes poetry, generally dark, which is her way of dealing with life. This insightful author hosts a website covering every aspect of fiction writing and interviews with noted guest authors.

Learn more about Dianna L. Gunn on her website and follow her on Twitter.

What I Learned About Writing

by Joyce Frohn

This story began during the proverbial ‘dark and stormy night’. Okay, so it wasn’t really night, but it was stormy and I was stuck in my Grandmother’s farmhouse. I did what many of us did when we were kids, went looking for a something to read. After thumbing three dog-breeding magazines, I found a ten-year-old copy of The Whole Earth catalog that had a serial story in it. I don’t know how it began or ended. What I had was a piece with a drug-addled guy, a girl, and a van crossing America. The van told the story. It complained a lot, especially that its carburetor was painted purple in an attempt to improve its feung-shui. The guy kept saying there was an invisible dragon in the backseat.

For some reason, this hippie mess fascinated me. For the first time in my life, I took a story apart in my mind. I liked the van, if it would shut up. I liked the girl and the invisible dragon. I jotted down some things and tried to figure out where I wanted to place these characters. Little did I know this was me becoming a writer. I was twelve and had already learned to read everything: the good, the bad, and the cereal box.

I had already learned one important lesson of writing; there is no story so bad that it can’t inspire something. I took those characters and popped them into various places which meant I threw away a lot of stories. The first one involved the girl being a ballerina and was set in Medieval Europe. Before burning it, I learned something else. There needs to be a balance of weird and normal to make a good speculative story. I also needed to get rid of that druggie.

Later, I spoke with a former drugged-out hippie. He said the strangest thing that ever happened was after he got sober. He went to a gas station for the first time in more than ten years. After that, everything fell into place and it only took a little more than thirty years.

There’s another important thing; don’t throw away all your early work, there maybe something worth salvaging. I recently had the shock of being paid for the scribbled notes that I put in my Jr. High Student Manuel where I fantasized about how much better the school would be if there were werewolves, vampires and other assorted monsters in attendance. Think about it, it would make Jr. High better wouldn’t it?

And from those dog breeder magazines, I learned that my version of a nightmare killer dog is a Rhodesian Ridgeback crossed to an English Mastiff. I still haven’t written that story, but the notes are saved.

Joyce Frohn has been writing since childhood and published since her research on slime molds ended. She is married to a man who says he never wants her to stop writing. Jouce has a nine-year-old daughter who envies how much time Mom gets to spend on the family computer.

The Futility of Utopia

by Kristen Saunders

What is utopia? It is an ideal community or society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities. The problem lies within humanity’s inability to agree on a single course of action that would create a desirable outcome.

Desire is such a dangerous thing especially when there is only a limited quantity of something. “Something” could be money, time, space, a job, resources, or even the thoughts of people. It then stands to reason that a utopia would be able to fulfill everyone’s desires.

There have been several different kinds of government systems to try and equalize our desires. It could easily be said communism is an even distribution of things so that people will always have the basics and occupation. No one is left to suffer or to have their mind wandering endlessly. However, they can dream of more and are often stuck in a role they are not happy with.

Republics and Democracies are a representation of the people. The people, or their representatives, find their own balance and have their voices heard. Essentially distributing roles and resources as needed in each area. However, the state does not guarantee anything. The people must work with those around them to obtain the resources they need. Those who are not of the majority often lose their say in how the distribution is done for the community.

Dictatorships and Kingdoms raise up a few who would ideally provide and protect those bellow them. Very often this works out poorly. Those at the top often become greedy and deprive the people below them of their basic needs.

Wars are always the result of governments, or on a smaller scale people, having a shared desire of a limited resource. The desire often stems from a need that must be met. Sadly in many cases there is no way to satisfy the needs of everyone and eventually conflict breaks out.

The balancing of desire is a tricky business with an entire society. So hard in fact it is almost impossible to imagine a true utopia where everyone is happy. I would venture to say it would be impossible if people are responsible for the making of that world.

I imagine if utopia actually existed it would be different than we would normally think. It would be a world without want and everyone would have their place. Not only that, but they would be content with their lot.

If utopia existed, the society would very closely mimic that of the Borg from Star Trek. Your personal desires would be gone; you would want for nothing. Your directive would be your life, but you would always be satisfied and taken care of. Utopia would lie in having no desire for more and never dreaming of anything greater. It would the pinnacle for everyone to achieve. There would be neither great happiness nor great sadness. Everything would be in balance, and eventually there would be peace because everyone would be a part of it. After all, resistance is futile.

Kristen Saunders is a recent addition to Penumbra EMag, serving as an editorial intern. She loves to write science fiction in her free time and recently started her blog The Musings of a Growing Writer.

My Definition of Utopia

by Dianna L. Gunn

When we ran the Dystopia issue back in July, I wrote a post entitled Utopia Vs. Dystopia. As a final note I said that everyone's idea of utopia is different, so today I'd like to tell you about my vision of utopia.

In my utopia, we would have found an infinitely renewable source of electricity. This way, we could keep things like the internet functional without ruining our planet.

In my utopia, money wouldn't exist. Instead, regardless of what job they did, children, students and everyone employed would have shelter and food and other crucial items would be shared freely. What jobs people did would be based on their passion, rather than on what education they could afford or on race, age or gender. This would eliminate both poverty and hunger.

In my utopia, it would be easy and acceptable to plan your families, with birth control and contraception being freely provided. This way, nobody would have children they didn't want, meaning all children would be well loved.

In my utopia, sickness would never put someone into debt, but more importantly, terminally ill people would be able to choose when they die. Nobody would be forced to live in a hospital bed attached to twenty machines. People would instead choose the time and place of their death, so that they might die happy and with dignity.

In my utopia, there would be no 1%. Instead there would only be 100%, with all people on an equal footing, recognizing that everyone's contribution to society is important—after all, how well do you think teachers would teach if they had to clean the schools too? How well do you think scientists would do if they had nobody to teach them the periodic table? Every job is important to keep the system running, and in my utopia, they would acknowledge that.

My utopia would be a society that matched my values, focusing on the well being of its people rather than their efficiency or money. It is based upon my ideals. Some people's idea of utopia will be the same as mine. Others will have a slightly different or even completely different idea of utopia based on their own beliefs—and that variety of belief is just what makes humans so great.

So now I ask you to think: what does your utopia look like?

Dianna L. Gunn is a young Canadian fiction writer who specializes in dark fantasy. She also writes poetry, generally dark, which is her way of dealing with life. This insightful author hosts a website covering every aspect of fiction writing and interviews with noted guest authors.

Learn more about Dianna L. Gunn on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Beowulf and "Death" of the Written Word

by Brandie Tarvin

The first time I read Beowulf was in the second grade, and I understood it better at that age then I ever did when I had to read it for college.

I love books. I've been addicted to the written word so long that I can't even remember the title of the first book I read by myself. Childhood afternoons were spent at the local library in a mythology-reading frenzy. Greek, Roman, Norse, Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiian myths are just a sampling of what I devoured.

And there was Beowulf, epic poetry at its finest.

I don't remember why I read it exactly. This wasn't part of a class assignment or a parental dictate. I was just hungry for something new, something different. When I found it sitting on a shelf in the library, I sat down, opened it up, and didn't stop until I'd gotten to the end. And this was no child-friendly version either. It was the full-blown-for-adults-English-translation-with-academic-notes version. (As you might imagine, I ignored all the footnotes. They were too boring.)

Beowulf is much on my mind as the last of the independent brick-n-mortar bookstores shutter their windows and libraries lock their doors due to lack of funding. I only read Beowulf because I found it on a shelf while I spent hours wandering the library. Many of my favorite books and authors I only discovered because of my "wandering the shelves" habit. With the digital revolution, I'm losing the ability to impulse purchase my books.

This past year, I finally joined the 20th century when I downloaded the Nook app for my laptop and Smartphone. The convenience of eBooks is a wonderful thing, but I miss holding a conventional book in my hands. Curling up in a comfy chair with hot tea next to a roaring fire on a cold day just isn't the same when I'm cradling a Smartphone instead of a book. And trying to browse the bookstores electronically isn't easy. Nook Mobile doesn't appear to let me browse past the first 10-15 books in a specific genre (I can't find the "next page" button), which means I have to know my book title name or author name or stick with the Top 100 books list, which is not where I acquire my pleasure reading.

Then there's the guilt factor, the thought that the more I buy into the digital revolution, the less time I might spend at my local library. Or the more I purchase in digital books, the less money I'm spending at my local bookstores which might make them close even sooner.

Things I like about eBooks include the ability to turn on the phone anytime, anywhere, and just start reading. There's no extra weight in my luggage, no extra items to lug around. If I spend $60.00 - $100.00 on a bunch of new titles, I'm not breaking my back by lugging around huge, heavy shopping bags. Some of the eBooks I've read have been fantastic: well-written, well-edited, and beautifully presented. But, I've also been turned off by as many eBooks as I've enjoyed. I didn't used to get burned so badly when I could wander the shelves and hold the book in my hand.

I don't believe print is dead, if for no other reason that I personally don't want it to be dead. I do believe, though, that if a book or magazine is beautifully written, presented, and edited, that there's no reason why it can't be digital and no reason I can't enjoy it just as much as the dead-tree copies I usually prefer.

One of the perks of working on Penumbra is that I get to see stories by authors who I may never heard of before, who never had a chance to end up on those brick-n-mortar bookshelves. I can read all these wonderful digital works and make mental notes to keep that author on my future book search list. As that thought makes me smile, though, I pass the old Borders store which still hasn't been appropriated by another retailer. Then, a few minutes later, I pass a store that should be a Books-A-Million but appears to have vanished without warning. My heart aches. Weren't the big chain bookstores supposed to last longer than this?

As I prepare to mourn the not-quite-yet death of the written word, I remember something I never knew as a child but learned later in college.

Beowulf was meant to be spoken, not read.

I wonder what the old Germanic tribes would say if they saw one of their surviving epics sprawling across a digital screen.

Learn more about Brandie Tarvin and her writing on her website and blog. Stay connected on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

MINING CREATIVITY

by Randy Lindsay

Maybe it’s because I’m not a famous author – yet. I want to know what happened to all the questions about how I come up with ideas for my stories. You see it in movies all the time; actors who are playing authors are invariably asked about the source of their creative process.

Well, I don’t want to wait. I’m not going to sit around hoping to be asked, like some nerdish wallflower waiting at the back of the gym during the high school Spring Fling. I’m just going to tell you.

Everything is a story to me. Songs, movies, ads in magazines are all grist for the creative mill. My wife laughs at the way a trip to the grocery store becomes the plot for a four-part mini-series whenever she asks how my day went.

Think I’m making it up? Just ask her. And if you really want to see some serious eye-rolling action, ask her what it’s like to be married to a creative genius. Yeah, I’m still waiting for people to start asking that question too.

For the most part, stories are blocks of reality that are strung together in an interesting and often unusual fashion. The purpose of using writing prompts to spur the creative effort is to provide starting blocks so you can jump right to the interesting part of the story. It allows you to leap past the dreary work of establishing the mundane elements that can bog down your imagination.

Why is this relevant to me, or my story? Not Fragile is the end result of my playing around with a writing prompt. In this case, I had listed the titles of 100 songs and took a few moments to look at each of them to see if they sparked my imagination. All I had to do was ask myself: What would a story with this title be about?

The words "Not Fragile" intrigued me. Immediately, my mind focused on the phrasing itself. Why would anyone choose to describe something in that particular way? Why not just list it as being durable or tough? And most importantly was what could be described as being "Not Fragile?"

Once I had the what and why of the story, I just needed to follow my normal plotting methods to fill in the rest. That included determining who was telling the story, where they were, and when it happened. The end result was a Science-Fiction tale about the crew of a space ship who make an incredible discovery on an alien planet. If that description sounds rather vague, then I guess you’ll have to read the story to find out what’s Not Fragile and why it’s not.

Writing prompts are sort of like playing connect the dots. You connect one, or more, pieces of a story together when you successfully answer the questions of who, what, why, where, and when. The prompts are really just a different method of getting you to focus on the story questions. You still have to do the difficult work of connecting them all together.

If this particular prompt doesn’t cause any bells to ring in the old story cabinet upstairs, then try a different one. Listen to the lyrics of a song and put a different spin on the message it gives. Take a headline from today’s newspaper and try to tell the story behind the story. Mix the plot from your two favorite novels to come up with a completely different story line. And if none of these suggestions work for you, stop over at my blog and check out the rest of the prompts I explore each Monday.

Now everyone knows where I get my story ideas from. Where do you get yours?

Randy Lindsay worked in the Hobby-Game industry for several years as a game designer and is now a stay-at-home dad looking to establish himself as an author. He writes Fantasy, SF, and is working on a Murder-Comedy. His short fiction has appeared in City of the Gods anthology and now Penumbra with upcoming stories in the Once Upon An Apocalypse anthology and the second City of the Gods anthology.

Learn more about Randy on his website and blog where he also writes on topics related to the craft of writing and offers movie reviews.

Musa Publishing Announces Deal With Author Gary K. Wolf For Third Roger Rabbit Novel

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 Musa Publishing, an independent digital-first publisher, has announced today that they will publish Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? by author Gary K. Wolf, the third book featuring Wolf's iconic character, Roger Rabbit, and the denizens of Toontown.

"When I first got a submission in the inbox from Gary K. Wolf, creator of Roger Rabbit, I must admit that I didn't take it seriously. After all, why would such a well-known author be coming to Musa?" confesses Musa Editorial Director, Celina Summers. "But after I read his submission, all my doubts were erased. No other author in the world has that distinct narrative voice. Rather quickly, we accepted two novels from Gary—The Late Great Show! and Typical Day—and Gary became part of the Musa family. But even then, I never expected he'd bring us a Roger Rabbit novel. "

Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? is the culmination of a twenty year wait for fans of the world that Wolf first created in his 1981 Hugo-winning Who Censored Roger Rabbit? The third installment in the series has been promised to fans for a long time but never released. Now, with the 25th anniversary of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on the horizon in 2013 and an interview with director Robert Zemeckis last week stirring up excitement among Roger Rabbit fans because of the completed script for a second Roger Rabbit film, the collaboration between Wolf and Musa is coming at a significant time.

"I could easily have published Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? through a major print publishing house. Instead, I choose to make this the first book of the Roger Rabbit series to be published digitally," Wolf states. "That decision evolves directly from the way I work, from the core philosophy of what I write and why I write it. I always push the boundaries in my writing. I invent worlds that nobody else ever thought about. I create unique characters and situations. I try to always be at the forefront of my craft. That includes the way my writing is presented to my readers. Digital publishing is clearly the future. It’s the way books are headed, so I’m heading that way, too."

With his first book at Musa, The Late Great Show!, released in October and his second novel, Typical Day, coming out on December 7, Wolf is no stranger to the Musa system. "I especially like the way Musa has taken digital publishing into areas that I never thought of. Using proprietary software, I’m able to interact with them electronically in real time. My editor, the publicity department, the art department, and everybody else involved with my work all have instant access to everything I submit. And vice versa."

Wolf isn't the only well-known author bringing his works to Musa. USA Today bestselling author Sharon De Vita has a multi-book deal with the publisher, and her romantic mystery The Estrogen Posse has been increasing in sales since its release in October, 2011. Science fiction up-and-comer Gini Koch's serial—The Martian Alliance—is being published by Musa, along with new and backlisted works from well-known authors like Cindi Myers, Vella Munn, Helen Hardt, and Julia Parks. In addition, Musa is responsible for the Homer Eon Flint project, where the entire body of work of this lost American science fiction author is being saved from crumbling 1920s pulp magazines and disintegrating newspaper copy and published as e-books.

"Even two or three years ago, it would have been thought impossible to lure these writers to a small, young publisher," Summers explains. "But because of our author-friendly policies and transparent business model, small publishers like Musa are able to release books like Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? digitally, with both a better product and prices far below what traditional publishers set for their e-books."

Both Summers and Wolf are optimistic about the prospects for Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? The novel reunites all the old fan favorites—Eddie Valiant, his fuzzy sidekick Roger Rabbit, Baby Herman, and Roger’s va-va-voom mate Jessica, who continue their madcap human and Toonian adventures. This time, Eddie is hired to bodyguard for Gary Cooper and Roger Rabbit, the stars of a new movie that's been receiving dire threats—shut down the film or else.

"Musa is thrilled to publish the next installment in the Roger Rabbit world," Summers says. "Toontown and e-publishing are destined to work well together. Gary has such an innovative mind. He takes risks daily with his fiction—he enjoys taking creative risks. He can do that comfortably at Musa because we encourage all our authors to reach further, to attempt things they normally wouldn't. E-publishing is all about trying things that traditional publishers might be uncertain about."

With the release of Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? set for November of 2013, Musa and Wolf are poised to gratify millions of Roger Rabbit fans across the world. The entertainment franchise is worth over $500,000,000 and the fandom is as eager as ever to follow their beloved Roger Rabbit and Eddie Valiant into new adventures—including e-publishing. Penumbra readers will get an extra bonus in January, when the magazine will feature an in-depth conversation with Wolf regarding Roger Rabbit and writing--but also a strong emphasis on the publishing industry itself.

"Digital publishing is the wave of the future, and I’ve always been a wave of the future kind of guy," Wolf states matter-of-factly. "For me, going digital wasn’t in any way a last resort. It was a necessity."

Gary Wolf is the NYT Bestselling author of numerous book, articles, and short stories including Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?, Space Vulture, and The Late Great Show! His movie credits include Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the three Roger Rabbit cartoons Tummy Trouble, Rollercoaster Rabbit, and Trail Mix-up, and—coming in 2014—screen adaptations of his science fiction novels The Resurrectionist and Killerball. Awards for Wolf’s work include the Hugo Award, British Science Fiction Award, SF Chronicle Award, and 4 Academy Awards. Wolf is an avid Yoga enthusiast and lives in Boston where he is a full-time author, screenwriter, lecturer, entertainment consultant, and consummate “grown-up kid.” Look for his next Roger Rabbit installment to be released November, 2013 by Musa Publishing.


The Late Great Show! and Typical Day is available through Musa Publishing, www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and e-tailers worldwide.

More information available from Musa Publishing at www.musapublishing.com and www.musapublishing.blogspot.com .

Thoughts on Writing

by Barry Rosenberg

In the beginning was the Word. For many, perhaps, but not for me. In the beginning was the Number. As a young person, I was pretty much inarticulate but from school I won a place to study maths at university. Though I wasn’t a diligent student, I did go on to do a PhD in Artificial Intelligence.


At the time, my unconscious assumption was that the brain/mind was to be understood as information processing. This was in the late-60s, the early days of computing. In the mid-70s, however, I became involved with meditation and tai chi. Re-thinking mind, I became convinced that little bits did not add up to make a whole. In other words, data did not add up to make the mind. Atoms and molecules did not add up to make objects. Becoming a 70s dropout, I spent hours in meditation and tai chi.

Until this time, I’d never taken much note of poetry. Yet in meditation, whole poems would appear in my mind. And they would stay as an uncomfortable itch until I wrote them down. For quite a few years, I was highly itinerant while scraping a living from teaching tai chi and relaxation classes. With me went an increasing paper burden of “spiritual” poems.

Later on and married, my wife was part of an exhibition called, Hebraic Connections. I put in a self-published book of my poetry with the same name. It has since become a collectable and sells for slightly more than the original price!

Over those years, I saw a fair number of gurus - either in Australia or in India. Quite a few were pretty shonky, reflecting what is known as the left-hand path. This means that as meditation deepens, psychic abilities may (seem to) appear and the searcher concentrates on them rather than on the inner search. It is these characters who provide tension in a narrative.

So when I became more settled (conventionally employed), my writing focussed more on guru-types who follow the left-hand path. Initially, this led to a gentle quirkiness. For example, in one little story a teenager exudes wax from his ears while he sleeps. So he sticks a string in his ear and concentrates on making candles that he can sell at the market. During this quirky period, the main influence on me was Terry Pratchett and his Discworld.

So my writing was quirky, but not horrorble. Now, I hadn’t seen the film based on Stephen King’s book, The Green Mile. Nor did I have a particular interest in horror. But one day, I picked up the novel and began to read it. I became an immediate convert to Stephen King - and to horror.

Horror comes in many forms. The worst kind can be read in the newspapers. Just as children like to be chased, adults enjoy the more controllable horror that appears in books. In fact, writers derive an unholy glee in describing destructive zombie hordes or plagues of biting vampires. The problem, and the fun, with these and other eldritch creatures is to find new ways of presenting them.

Which brings me, in a rather convoluted way, to my story. Penumbra wanted stories of exploration in a speculative fiction setting. My story could never have been written by one whose beginning was the Number. Nor even by one whose middling was the Word. Dare I say it? It required someone willing to explore the darker shades of fantasy.

So, from the humorous fantasy of Terry Pratchett and the scarifying horror of Stephen King, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you ArachnidMan - a humorous yet scarifying slant on first encounter.

Barry Rosenberg was born in London, then moved to Australia after completing his PhD. Since 1997, Rosenberg has lived on the Sunshine Coast with his artist wife, Judith.

He started to write poetry in 1974 and moved onto short stories and plays. Most of his stories are quirky or speculative fiction. It is only in the past few years that he has been active in submitting his work. His short stories are available on Amazon. The Buddha Leaves, Rosenberg's paranormal e-novel is available at jaffa BOOKS.

Barry invites you all to join his Yahoo group.

On November, Nanowrimo, and Exploration

by Dianna L. Gunn

In spite of the rain and cold keeping me indoors, when I heard that November's Penumbra issue was going to have an exploration theme, I thought it was perfect. Not because American Thanksgiving celebrates taking land from the natives or because of any historical feat, but because November is the month of Nanowrimo.

For those of you who don't know, Nanowrimo is an annual challenge to write 50, 000 words of fiction in a month. The motto of quantity over quality along with the large community and tight deadline forces you to just write, without holding anything back. It's a great way to discover whether or not you actually have a novel in you. Along the way you'll learn more about yourself and about writing than you thought possible, even though you probably won't want to look at the draft when you're done with it.

Even after eight years, I consider every Nanowrimo an exploration. Each year I start with a story—usually the bare bones of one—and explore all its avenues. I travel through the world I've created for this year's novel, learning everything there is to know. I discover my character's darkest secrets and their greatest joys.

Year after year, I also discover things about myself. I've discovered that, if left alone for a month with no ability to go outside and only a computer to keep me company, I can write 300, 000 words in 30 days. I've discovered that this behaviour leads to tendonitis, which I still struggle with. I've also discovered that if I'm actually trying to do well in school, I can't accomplish anywhere near that word count.

Similarly, in one year of working at Penumbra I've learned a lot. I've learned what it takes to build a successful magazine, how difficult it is to manage a blog when you're relying primarily on other people, and how awesome it feels to see the slow but steady climb of readers. I've also learned that even I have a burn out point, and that as much as I want to be superwoman, sometimes I have to take a step back and refuse extra duties.

This November, I planned to discover a whole new world with my writing. I'm also hoping to find new ways to make Penumbra shine and to bring our blog—and the eMagazine itself—to new audiences all over the world.

What did you hope to discover this November?

Dianna L. Gunn is a young Canadian fiction writer who specializes in dark fantasy. She also writes poetry, generally dark, which is her way of dealing with life. This insightful author hosts a website covering every aspect of fiction writing and interviews with noted guest authors.

Learn more about Dianna L. Gunn on her website and follow her on Twitter.

From All of Us at Penumbra eMag

We Wish You and Yours 
a 
HEALTHY
and

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Where Is the Humour?

by Edoardo Albert

The future, it appears, has no jokes. Nor, for that matter, does the urban present, even if it is filled with glittery vampires. For some reason, speculative fiction appears to be almost completely humourless – think of the number of magazines, ezines, fanzines and geezines that advertise themselves as ‘dark’, ‘darker’ or ‘so bloody morbid we’re invisible at night’. Why is this? True, the old grandmasters of speculative fiction that I grew up reading, men like Robert Heinlein, Arthur Clarke and Isaac Asimov, were more concerned with imagining and, dare I say, propagandising the future than populating it with jokes (although anyone reading ‘The Number of the Beast’ would have to assume that Heinlein, at least, had a sense of humour since the alternative, that he seriously means this, is just too awful to contemplate). But surely now – when we live in a world with all the trappings of the wildest science fiction future in an everyday iPhone – it’s time to admit that the future is here and it’s completely and utterly ridiculous. I mean, what would the Futurians have made of a future that achieved technological miracles and used them to turn Paris Hilton into the most famous person on the planet?

In fact, all the prophets and soothsayers were wrong. Take George Orwell for example. Although he was correct in much, he saw the future as a boot stamping on a human face forever. Well, the future turned out to be a human face gurning forever. As such, maybe the reason there’s so few jokes in speculative fiction is because it’s pretty well impossible to top what’s actually out there. Imagine the most extreme ad absurdum you can, and someone will be offering it on eBay. After all, one young woman just auctioned her virginity for $780,000 and justifies it as a career move. You really couldn’t make it up.

Then why should you? The world is the most wonderful resource for the writer of the absurd and it’s there to be mined: after all, what could be sillier than sex, money and politics?

The temptation, of course, is to conclude that because we are absurd, as a species and a civilisation, then everything is. But that, it turns out, is a conclusion too far – there is nothing absurd in nature although there is much that is strange and grotesque. Absurdity is a human specific attribute, and one that grows more pronounced the greater our powers become. “Ye shall be as gods,” was the promise, and we are, wielding powers undreamed of, sufficient to make a paradise on earth. But, instead, we have the Shopping Channel. It’s an object lesson in unintended consequences. We could imagine Jehovah, standing by the gates of Eden, asking, “So how’s that god business shaping up for you?” It’s the job of the writer to answer, “Er, not so well.”

Edorado Albert's story Time Hoppers is featured in the November issue of Penumbra EMag.

The responses to Edoardo Albert’s work rather prove what he argues above. The stories, the books, the articles, have drawn some compliments, but the best response ever, which saw a friend rolling on the ground, helpless with laughter, was a lonely-hearts ad. It was probably the bit about tickling the belly of a wolf that did it.

Find Edoardo Albert’s books (he’s particularly proud of Northumbria: The Lost Kingdom which has just been published) and stories via his website although the lonely-hearts ad will not be making an appearance in the foreseeable future). Connect with him through his blog, Twitter or Facebook.

The Future of Exploration

by Kristen Saunders

October 16, 2012 before he took the highest skydive in history, Felix Baumgartner said, “Sometimes you have to be up really high to know how small you are. I’m going home now.” A minute or so later he would be the first man to break the sound barrier with nothing but his body going 833.9 mph. Seven years were spent planning and engineering Red Bull Stratos; the project that gave Felix the chance to break three world records in one day. On top of sky diving from the highest point ever, 128,100 feet above the Earth’s surface, he also ballooned to the highest point in history and managed to stay alive. His special pressurized suit kept his blood from boiling in the stratosphere.

Red Bull Stratos was one of many historical explorations that have been done this year. Not only did we achieve our highest heights, we went deep under water, finally taking footage of the distinguished Challenger Deep. In March, James Cameron successfully culminated eight years of hard work. He traveled to the deepest known point on the Earth’s sea floor, Challenger Deep, which lies at the bottom of Mariana’s Trench. Cameron traveled 36,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean in a one man submarine called Deepsea Challenger to see what lay at the bottom of our oceans. He was the first to capture images of life from those depths, succeeding where the Trieste did not in 1960. The Trieste’s descent kicked up so much silt nothing was able to be captured on film.

These projects employed new technology to achieve some of the greatest moments of exploration in our life time. Mars Rover Curiosity also joined the news in August landing on Mars by way of a rocket propelled space crane. These feats of engineering are changing not only what we are able to see, but what we will be able to do in the future.

Writers will now be able to look on these markers of history and imagine what we may next encounter here on Earth or on other planets. The technology in the suit that Felix Baumgartner wore could easily be translated into a suit someone on Mars (or another planet) might wear. The next great sport could be strato-jumping and the wars of the future may well be fought by one-man-submarines at the depths of the oceans. Our history tends to shape our fiction and I am watching closely to see where our next “small steps” will take us.

I am curious to see the role of companies in these projects. NASA’s Curiosity was the only project the U.S. government fully owned. Rolex sponsored the Challenger Deep dive and Red Bull plastered its name into the Red Bull Stratos project. Companies are starting to make major investments in science as pet projects. This isn’t a rant; it is just what’s happening. Private firms are making the discoveries of tomorrow. This may change how exploration will be done. It could open doors of opportunity for some and also shut them for others.

It will be interesting to see how these events will affect the writing done in the near future and also the years to come.

Kristen Saunders is a recent addition to Penumbra EMag, serving as an editorial intern. She loves to write science fiction in her free time and plans to take on NaNoWriMo this year.

Hacking the Writer Brain: The Stevenson Imperative

by Jude Griffin

It’s NaNoWriMo time again. National Novel Writing Month ( hundreds of thousands of people around the world dedicate themselves to writing fifty thousand words between 1 Nov. and 30 Nov.

As an enthusiastic but less than prolific participant, I'm fascinated by the people who manage to write fifty thousand words in a month. Once, when I was relating a glorious but short-lived period of writing 5000 words a week to my writing group, the whole room gasped. As a whole, writers love what they do while simulatenously struggling like hell to do it.

WTF, right?

Right.

So this time around, I'm making my writer brain the subject of an experiment. An experiment that will last til the next NaNo next year, and I will be documenting it in occasional posts here.

The first principle to be put into practice is what I'll call "The Stevenson Imperative" after the wonderful Jennifer Stevenson, author of the astonishing Trash Sex Magic (inter alia), who once sent me one of the finest pieces of writing advice ever:

"Write a page a day or burn in hell."

Genius.

Deceptively simple, but it strikes at the core of what underlies great productivity in writing: make it a habit.

What does it take to form a habit? Repetition+time=habit. But how much time and how much repetition is where it starts to get fuzzy. Maxwell Maltz published his book on cognitive behavioral therapy, Psycho-Cybernetics, in 1960 from which we seem to have gotten the very popular modern-day belief that it takes twenty-one days to form a habit.

While there is no scientific proof that three weeks has magical habit-forming power, we do know that repetition over time creates physical changes in the brain--less the subject of conscious decision-making and focus and more the output of a brain trained to perform.

In The War of Art, a book all about our resistance to writing (or, more generally, behavior chance), Stephen Pressfield writes:

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write."

I used to thrash about in avoidance. I'd do the dishes, clean the utensil drawer, check all the batteries in the flashlights, organize the medicine cabinet, remind myself of how to use our fire extinguishers--until I applied the same tactic that I used to get myself out of bed at 4:15 am for crew: no thought permitted. Just action.

If I treated getting up and getting ready as non-negotiable, if I did not allow myself even one moment of lying back to think about how I felt, how I tired I was, how cold out it must be, could I sleep a little longer, then it was much easier for me every morning to get out of bed. It sounds simple, but changing where you let your brain go takes constant reinforcement.

But now the challenge for me is the writing. I can open the document, read my notes, even envision a scene. But then: nothing. I am frozen. My brain feels weird. I can't write anything good. I don't know how to open the scene.

Ugh.

This is my challenge. To move forward when even the next step is unclear and feels shaky and wrong. This is where I want to teach myself to have faith in the transcendental nature of writing, as so memorably described by Joyce Carol Oates in The Paris Review's "The Art of Fiction No. 72":

"One must be pitiless about this matter of “mood.” In a sense, the writing will create the mood. If art is, as I believe it to be, a genuinely transcendental function—a means by which we rise out of limited, parochial states of mind—then it should not matter very much what states of mind or emotion we are in. Generally I've found this to be true: I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes . . . and somehow the activity of writing changes everything."

This is parallel to something I have noticed with running, or, more precisely in my case, waddling. It takes about fifteen minutes before it starts to feel good, before it stops being an effort, before a thousand nose and ankle itches stop plaguing me. I've learned to have faith in the power of those fifteen minutes of slogging, before the endorphins release and the dopamine rewards me for sticking it out.

One part of me knows this is also true for writing, that it also takes me about fifteen minutes of sustained effort before the act of writing stops being so difficult and fraught and becomes pleasurable. But, like exercise, the gap between knowing and doing can be large. So my task this month is to have faith. To apply The Stevenson Imperative and have faith that, in the act of doing so, everything changes.

Jude Griffin is a writer, photographer, and an expert in learning and knowledge management. Inclined toward geekitude in all things, she loves to read about the neuroscience of creativity. She is a member of the rollicking NaNo Boston 2012 group, reads slush for Nightmare and Lightspeed magazines, and is working on a novel that might be sci fi, might be fantasy.

Stay connected with Jude on Facebook.

How do You Shape an Idea into a Publishable Story?

by Larry Ivkovich

Good question. If I’m aiming for a specific market, certainly I’ll follow their guidelines regarding word count and format and any theme that may be required for that particular issue. That also goes for any taboo on graphic sexual content and too much violence, if that’s specified. Each market is different and has different requirements.


Aside from that, I pretty much let my imagination be my guide although there are a couple of rules I adhere to. No matter what the subject, setting and plot, it’s important to focus on the characters. The characters are ultimately what most readers will relate to and the protagonists should react to the situations in the story appropriately and consistently. In the process, the story may change depending on how the characters grow and interact. They really do take on lives of their own!

The first sentence and paragraph should pull the reader into the story immediately. It’s a short story and you may not have a lot to work with so you need to get the readers’ attention right from the start. A couple of opening lines I’ve used in published stories of mine are – “The Hunter-Beasts had found her,” and “Melissa came to work that day dressed as a Valkyrie Warrior Princess.” Anything akin to “It was a dark and stormy night” just won’t cut it.

I also belong to a writing/critique group which has proven invaluable in getting the kinks out of a story. Sometimes I’m too close to a piece and can’t “see the forest for the trees.” A set of fresh eyes helps to point out any faults or inconsistencies.

In the end, the editors will make the final decision and if the story is rejected, it may not be because it’s a bad story but that it isn’t the “right fit” for their market. That’s a hard reason to understand and get used to but you just need to send that rejection out to another market whose editor may decide it’s just what they’ve been looking for. And I mean send it out the next day! Don’t waste time mourning your rejection. As clichéd as it sounds, perseverance will pay off!

Larry Ivkovich is a genre writer who's had several short stories and novellas published in various online and print publications. He's been a finalist in the L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest and was the 2010 recipient of the CZP/Rannu Fund Award for Fiction. His debut novel, The Sixth Precept, was published last November by IFWG publishing.

Learn more about Larry and his work on his website.

Suspending Disbelief: Achieving a Semblance of Truth

by Barbara A. Barnett

Hypothetical scenario: A hopeful young writer offers up his work to his critique group. His story takes place in a contemporary, real-world setting—except with vampires. In one scene, the protagonist and her vampire boyfriend are in a car accident. The boyfriend is unconscious, bleeding profusely. The protagonist, unaware her boyfriend is a vampire, decides to perform a do-it-yourself blood transfusion. This turns her into a vampire.

Everyone critiquing the story tells the hopeful young writer that the scene is not realistic. They're willing to believe the boyfriend's blood would turn the protagonist into a vampire, but they don't believe an intelligent, modern-day character would try to perform a transfusion on the side of the road instead of using her cell phone to call for help. Heck, she didn't even know if they had compatible blood types.

"But it's fantasy!" the hopeful young writer declares. "There are vampires! It's not supposed to be realistic! Whatever happened to suspending your disbelief?"

Suspension of disbelief. Far too often, I've seen that phrase misused in defense of characters acting in unrealistic ways. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the man who coined the term, had this to say about it in his Biographia Literaria:

"In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical Ballads; in which it was agreed, that my endeavors should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."

Like our hypothetical hopeful young writer, many people toss around the phrase suspension of disbelief with no awareness that an equally important phrase originally accompanied it: semblance of truth. In other words, if you want your readers to suspend their disbelief long enough to read about your vampire, alien, carnivorous gnome, or what have you, you need to give your story a semblance truth—a world with a consistent reality and characters who act like real people. One reason so many people are willing to accept all of the magic and fantastical creatures in Lord of the Rings is because Tolkien created a world that feels real. Middle Earth has depth and texture and consistency, and it's populated by characters who behave in a realistic manner.

There are times, though, when achieving a semblance of truth means parting ways with actual truth. In Ghost Writer to the Dead, I ask readers to believe in a world like ours, only with ghosts and psychic detective agencies. Giving the story a real-world setting (the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site) and a real-world character (Edgar Allan Poe) meant I had a rich amount of detail and history to draw upon, but it also meant I had to pick the right details. In the first draft, my critique partners pointed to some word choices in Poe's dialogue that threw them out of the story. One word actually was in popular usage during Poe's lifetime, but because it didn't feel like something my critique partners thought Poe would say, it kept them from fully suspending their disbelief. So out it went.

Achieving that semblance of truth can be tricky business, particularly when you're dealing with the fantastic. But the more realistic you make your world and its characters, the more likely readers will be to suspend their disbelief. Vampires, ghosts, and the like may not be real, but the impact they can have when a reader is drawn into the world of your story most definitely is.

Barbara A. Barnett is an avid rejection letter collector, musician, MLIS student, Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, coffee addict, wine lover, bad movie mocker, and all-around geek. Her fiction has appeared in publications such as Fantasy Magazine, Shimmer, Daily Science Fiction, Black Static, and Wilde Stories 2011: The Year's Best Gay Speculative Fiction. In addition to writing, she has worked in the performing arts world for several years.

Learn more about Barbara on her website.

Short Fiction In A Fast Market

by Celina Summers

Over at our parent company, Musa Publishing, we've been working with the family of American science fiction pioneer Homer Eon Flint. Flint is one of the original sci fi writers, a hack writer for the pulp magazines of the nineteen-teens through the mid nineteen-twenties. He's best known for his series of pulp novels about Dr. Kinney—forays into planetary exploration from the imagination of a turn of the century imagination: The Emancipatrix, The Devolutionist, The Queen of Life and The Lord of Death. But Homer Eon Flint also had a healthy string of short stories published—and what was, to us, a treasure trove of unpublished short stories as well.

Working through Flint's entire body of work has been professionally fulfilling for me, but it's also called to mind an era most of us can't imagine—a time where submissions were all snail mail, no ifs, ands, or buts. For generations, authors typed and retyped their stories, getting each page picture perfect, then slipped it into an envelope, went to the post office, and mailed it to an editor. That's why Vella Munn, Flint's granddaughter and multi-published author, was able to bring us all these stories that never saw the light of day. Because back then, when an editor rejected a story, he sent it back to the writer.

Some of my favorite childhood books were semi-autobiographical novels about young women who write—Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy stories, L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. All three of these classic tales occur within forty years of each other—from the Civil War of Alcott's impetuous heroine Jo, to the American world of Lovelace's charmer Betsy and the Canadian Prince Edward Island of Betsy's contemporary, Montgomery's adopted redhead Anne. All three girls began writing at an early age. All three girls began to send out their stories while still high school aged. Their descriptions of their maiden efforts were very similar.

'When she finished a story she copied it neatly and sent it away with return postage enclosed to The Ladies' Home Journal or The Delineator, The Youth's Companion or St. Nicholas. As regularly as she sent them out, they were returned. But Betsy was stubborn. If a story came back in the morning from one magazine, it went out in the afternoon to another. She kept a record in a little notebook of how much postage each manuscript required, when it went out, and when it came back.'(Betsy and Joe, Maud Hart Lovelace, 1948)

Anne's experience was similar.

'One day Anne took to the Post Office a long bulky envelope, addressed, with the delightful confidence of youth and inexperience, to the very biggest of the "big" magazines...A week of delightful dreaming followed, and then came a bitter awakening. One evening, Diana found Anne in the porch gable, with suspicious-looking eyes. On the table lay a long envelope and a crumpled manuscript.
"Anne, your story hasn't come back?" cried Diana incredulously.
"Yes it has," said Anne shortly.
"Well, that editor must be crazy. What reason did he give?"
"No reason at all. There is just a printed slip saying that it wasn't found acceptable."' (Anne of The Island, Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1915)

See? The form rejection has a long and storied history, and it hasn't changed much since the days of Homer Eon Flint. If anything, the only change is that getting those form rejections is much quicker. The fastest rejection I ever received was ten minutes.

That one stung.

But within a few minutes of that ten minute rejection, that story was on its way to the next magazine on my list. The turnover time was less than half an hour, from writing the query letter and sending the submission, to rejection, to sending the sub to another publication.

Sometimes, I don't think people realize exactly how substantially the publishing industry has changed. A hundred years is an amazingly short time historically. Heck, the last ten years have seen probably the biggest changes. When I was shopping my first novel, the majority of publishers still wanted paper submissions and queries. Now very few do. Home Eon Flint, whose stories foretold space travel and genetic testing—what would he think of publishing now? Of the immediacy of results? Of devices that could carry hundreds of stories at the same time and take up about the same amount of space in your briefcase as a notepad?

I wonder.

With the market faster and the reader demanding more top quality fiction at a greater rate, the speculative fiction market is alive and well and going strong. There's a lot more variety now. Magazines are dedicated to sub-genres now—the market has so many niches in it that every new year narrows the focus of periodicals even more. For the spec fic writer, this is a great thing. Instead of one or two playgrounds, we're now standing in an amusement park of themes—with something for everyone.

So maybe next time you get a form rejection, you can thank your lucky stars that it's 2012 and not 1912. A ten minute rejection is no fun, but at least you can move on quickly.

A ten month rejection? Not so much.

Bottomless Vales and Boundless Floods – Re-imagining Poe

by Kate O'Connor

October 7th marked the 163rd anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s death. After almost two centuries, his work is still loved, taught, portrayed in films, and, in the case of Penumbra’s October edition, re-imagined. So what is it about his stories that still make him relevant today?

I first heard The Masque of the Red Death read aloud when I was in middle school. The image of Death passing slowly through six brightly colored rooms is still the first thing that comes to my mind when someone mentions Poe. It discussed death and disease and poverty in ways that made me think hard about how my world worked.

Why and how did he come up with that story in the first place? It has certain folkloric hallmarks – death in physical form, a prince, and a masquerade ball, rich vs. poor – but there is more to it than a fairytale re-write. Prince Prospero isn’t an evil villain and neither is Death. The lesson isn’t about living a better life. Instead, the tale is a simple and subtle hint that Death is already with us no matter how hard we fight against it and how slow we are to recognize it. Typical Poe. But where did that profound understanding of humanity’s desire to deny and run from inevitability come from?

Whatever else may be said about him, Poe did not exactly lead a quiet, simple life. His father left, his mother died, he was in and out of jobs, schools, and the military. He travelled in a time when one couldn’t simply just get on an airplane and go. He struggled (and occasionally failed) to support himself working as a clerk, a newspaper writer, an editor, and a literary critic. There were so many chances in his life for questions about the world to come up. His experiences, like those of many other great writers, allowed him to glimpse the foundation of storytelling: helping people to understand aspects that cannot fit neatly into our daily life.

My story Red started with that middle school memory, but it didn’t stay there. In a time where the role government should play in protecting people is being debated in the U.S., I felt the story could speak to not just the inevitability of death, but to what happens to the people who get left behind when our leaders have to make seemingly impossible choices. “Greater good” is a hard thing to talk about – ideal for Poe-inspired story.

Poe’s writing changed the face of speculative fiction because of its subtle ferocity. His themes still have that potential. The questions he asks in his stories have certainly opened up new perspectives for me as a writer and as a person. I’m sure I’m not alone in that.

Each month, Penumbra’s variations on a theme also provide new and interesting ways to look at the universe. For me, re-imagining Poe challenges us to not just look at new and interesting perspectives, but to explore how profound questions of humanity will shape those perspectives – the perfect choice for celebrating Penumbra’s first year.

Kate O'Connor is a sometime pilot, archaeology field technician on off days, and occasional dog groomer. Her short fiction has appeared in Daily Science Fiction and Pressure Suite: Digital Science Fiction Anthology 3 and is forthcoming in Penumbra and Plasma Frequency. She currently lives in the New York area.

Do Simple Ideas Ever Get Published?

by Daniel Ausema

The first thought that comes to mind is that there are no simple ideas. Any idea, no matter how simple on the surface, has the potential to become much more once you start looking at it more closely. So a part of being a writer is training myself to see that, to discern the wrinkles and crevices in that simple surface.

Beyond that, there are two seemingly contradictory impulses that I try to cultivate in myself. The first is not to dismiss any idea right away. A story kernel--or for that matter, any idea for creating depth and detail within the story--might initially seem too ridiculous to take seriously. Often those ridiculous things turn out to be just what the story needs, if I just look at them sideways. Whether you want to think of it as a muse or something mystic or the role of the subconscious, the story often benefits from taking what seems silly or simple and just accepting that for the moment, filing it back into my mind, and then asking the question, "And then what?" It's like the classic improv comedy guideline: you never say "no," but always say "yes, and..." Take what you're given or what you come up with and then run from there.

At the same time, the second impulse I try to develop is to reach for the second or third idea. Sometimes the obvious, first thought is a dead-end after all, one that will leave the idea as simple as it seemed at first. Always reaching, always asking one more question after I think that I've solved a plot tangle. This doesn't have to be an agonizing, second-guessing sort of slog. A writing group I'm part of will often have intense one-hour writing prompts, and often the stories that come from it that I'm most pleased with are the ones where I ignore the first thing that comes to mind and reach for that idea just beyond it, the one that pushes the story a little further and more unexpected than I'd first imagined.

And always beneath (or above?) it all is an open curiosity. It's where the ideas, simple or not, come from in the first place and where the development of those ideas finds its traction. I'm deliberately and insatiably curious about all manner of things--people and plants, social customs and geological structures--and that curiosity gives the raw material for all sorts of stories.

Daniel Ausema has a background in journalism and experiential education and is now a stay-at-home dad. His fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications, including two issues of Penumbra. He lives in Colorado, a land of micro-brews, river rafting, and mountain wildfires.

Learn more about Daniel Ausema on his blog. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

MEDITATIONS ON THE DARK SIDE

by Larry Ivkovich

Edgar Allan Poe has always been one of my favorite authors so when Penumbra eMag announced their Poe-themed first anniversary issue, I jumped at the chance to submit a story.

As soon as I read the guidelines, The Cask of Amontillado came to mind. To me, it’s the ultimate revenge tale even though the perceived crimes by Fortunato against Montressor are never really described by Poe. I reread the story which, oddly enough, was first published in a magazine titled Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1846. It still holds up as starkly chilling. Can’t imagine what those first readers felt.

It got me to thinking about the victim and what would happen if he or she survived the immurement--entombed alive and left to die of hunger or thirst. Not feeling worthy enough to write an actual sequel to the original story, I came up with a female protagonist whose husband wanted her out of the way in order to get her estate.

I felt that no matter what higher or darker powers there were that allow a person to be kept alive with no food, water or light for twenty years, those same powers would be helpless to keep that person completely sane. The victim would change drastically.

Marian still lives in her bricked-in tomb but she’s really no longer human in mind, body or spirit. To her, the only thing that’s allowed her to survive is her hunger for revenge against her husband. Nothing else matters.

I was able to really dig into my dark side for this story. Somehow, Marian’s point-of-view was surprisingly easy to write from--I’m not sure what that says about my own personality although writing from the “bad guy” POV can sometimes be more interesting. I also tried to emulate, not so much Poe’s voice, but a similar style of that time period. It’s told in first-person by Marian and illustrates the monster she’s become.

Of course, the real question is--who’s the real monster, Marian or her husband who had committed the crime in the first place? Evil begets evil and, in the end, there are no good guys or winners.

I must have got something right for Penumbra Magazine to accept The Face Behind the Wall. I’m very excited and proud to be a part of their first anniversary issue!

Larry Ivkovich is a genre writer who's had several short stories and novellas published in various online and print publications. He's been a finalist in the L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest and was the 2010 recepient of the CZP/Rannu Fund Award for Fiction. His debut novel, The Sixth Precept, was published last November by IFWG publishing.


Learn more about Larry and his work on his website.

Why We Love Dread

by Karen Heuler

Hitchcock knew that anticipation of a bomb’s explosion created more tension than the explosion itself. We are seduced by expectation; we are addicted to watching how inevitability plays out.


Poe knew it too. His characters await consequences; they need retribution. They long to be exposed, to be relieved of the weight of expectation. They will commit their crimes, but they will blurt out their crimes, too. And if there is no one to blurt it to, then the crimes themselves turn on them, compulsively coming for them.

Why is dread so powerful?

Our own dreads may be personal—that we will be exposed, that our actions will be viewed sternly—but the consequences are public. And we do want consequences. We want to think that the good are rewarded and the evil are punished—and for that to happen to everyone means it will happen to us.

Dread involves secret desire. Those who have no remorse have no dread. For the rest of us, the anticipation of retribution is irresistible. Why wouldn’t it be? If you do something that you believe deserves payment, then you have no alternative but to expect it. The longer it takes to arrive, the more you desire it, if only to have it over with. Dread indicates a need for moral rightness. You may believe you’ll get away with something, but if you get away with it, then the world is out of order.

Hence, our need for dread. We fear and long for justice. It indicates a rightness, a perfection in the world—and it indicates, too, that we are subject to it. We like to see murder, thoughtlessness, cruelty punished. And because we are capable of imagining justice, we both want it and hate it. No justice excludes us.

When do we first feel dread? Not until we can anticipate consequences, knowing that a broken vase means punishment, a glowing orange blueness means burns. Until then, life sails on with unpremeditated rules.

But once cause and effect makes it into our heads, then too does justice and injustice. We long for the good to come of our actions, and dread the bad.

Still, we can get away with things, but unless we’re psychopaths, our minds expect to pay some cost for our actions.

So what we do in secret is still subject to law. In order for our world to be orderly, we, too, must suffer consequences even when no one else knows but us.

Poe knew that the conscience was a torturous, tormented thing: it couldn’t be ignored; it demanded to be heard. A guilty conscience wants justice as much as a pure one does; unfortunately the justice it wants is meted out against itself. We expect justice to come; we want it to come. Its delay is awful.

Inside dread is desire. We need to have the world reset.

We dread things because we know the rest of the world evaluates our actions and tries to establish a measure for it. Punishment is supposed to suit the crime, to even out its effect. It’s what we used to call an objective correlative when I was in college—that external personification of an internal conflict. True punishment picks up on the original crime and evolves it.

Because dread is internal, it’s unbalanced; once you experience dread, it can only be resolved externally. Though of course you feel it, it has an extended life of its own. Your fear seems to separate and begin its own existence.

We dread it because we want it; we want it because it’s the only relief there is to dread—that horrible moment when what we did comes home and finds us.

Karen Heuler’s stories have appeared in over 60 literary and speculative magazines and anthologies. Her most recent novel, The Made-up Man, is about a woman who sells her soul to the devil to be a man for the rest of her life. ChiZine Publications will publish her short story collection, The Inner City, in Feb. 2013 and Permuted Press will publish her novel, Glorious Plague, in 2014.

Learn more about Karen on her website.