Futurismic, a terrific group-blog run by sf writers, has decided to begin publishing fiction online, paying a nominal-but-respectable $100 per story. I love this idea, if for no other reason than it will give a bunch of writers an opportunity to read "slush" (unsolicited manuscripts), something that really helped me learn what mistakes new writers make and how to avoid them. Some other stuff I like: in an era when most magazines still insist on paper submissions, they're only reading via the Web, and insisting on ASCII, pasted into a form, for submissions. ASCII is the new PDF!
Stories should be compelling and well written, with a strong emphasis on characters confronting or embracing imminent cultural, social, technological, and scienctific changes. Post-cyberpunk, Information Age, and near-future extrapolations will be welcomed–serious or satirical, straight-forward or gonzo, optimistic or pessimistic. We are not interested in fantasy, horror, or more conventional SF themes such as space opera, time travel, first contact, or alternate worlds.,,
Our reading period for the first half of our publishing year will begin on January 3, 2004 and end on February 3, 2004. Any manuscripts sent before or after these dates will be deleted unread. Because of the short timeframe, you may send two stories during this reading period, but please do so in separate submissions. We'll begin to respond some time in mid-February, and hope to respond to all submissions within three months of the reading period's closing. At this time we're only planning to publish one story per month, so only six stories will be accepted during each reading period. (The second reading period of the year should occur in July 2004.)
