So, I really like Artifice Magazine's wishlist. And while I am hugely excited about the thrilling crazy awesome stuff that's going to be in our first issue, I feel like making a few requests. Here's some stuff we'd like to publish that really isn't coming in through the slush. (Maybe Tracy will make a list too.)
1. Science Fiction. Okay, we've gotten a little, but it mostly hasn't been to our taste. What is our taste? Well, we know it when we see it. So, send some.
2. Hack and Slash stories. Seriously. I love this stuff. Sometimes I just sit and read the D&D monster manual for hours. For a while I had an epic hack and slash blog of my own, but it didn't work out. You know how people tell you not to just write up your D&D games and submit them? You can actually do that here. The resulting story just has to be incredibly awesome and beautiful. I would kill to be the most metal magazine on Earth. Beautiful dream where Brian Evenson or somebody writes us one of these.
3. A love story. I just want to see what a love story I could care about at this point in my life would look like.
4. A story about history. We like inventions and atrocities. We've got one of these but could use another.
5. Poetry that meant to be something else. I will come out and say it: Tracy and I are not always the best, most enthusiastic readers for poetry. We love what we love, but it's specific. One of my big annoyances is poetry that feels anxious about being poetry. Like, the line breaks are there because that's just what you do. Etc. We would love more poetry of all flavors to consider, but especially that doesn't need to be poetry, poetry that would be just as happy as a story, an essay, or a thing.
6. Dirty stuff. But it has to actually be hot. And it can't be hateful. But don't screw around, either: get to the good part.
7. A "choose your own adventure" story. Because they're so cute, and soothing.
8. A story instructing the reader to view certain YouTubes. Why not?
9. A fairy tale. Possibly one with dirty stuff in it.
10. Something about video games. We kind of like them.
That's what comes to mind right this second. I'm sure I'll come up with more later.
Choose your own adventure! I've been thinking of doing a short one of these on my site. It seems a good fit for online reading.
ReplyDeleteA cool idea, I think, for a longer one would be to have different writers or illustrators or whatever or both do the different points in the story. You should totally solicit that thing together a few issues down the road.
Ehh, dirty fairy tales are a little passe for me. Usually that stuff is like right there to begin with. I'm all for writing what's there, but I'm more interested in a fairy tale that really, really invests itself with the reality of a fairy tale landscape. Like, the fact that these people's lives would be terrible, or what it'd really be like to have the kinds of bizarre family arrangements they have, or what it'd be like to go into a forest that's actually, honest-to-goodness virgin. More historical fiction, for me, too. More fables that don't rely on the abstract; more tales that know their shit.
ReplyDeleteYeah, no, this is true.
ReplyDelete