SQ Mag news

[gerryhuntman]

Hi Folks

Long time no post - been excessively busy. Apologies for that.

Well, in a few hours edition 10 of SQ Mag is being released, and we're so happy with the content, artwork, and that we reached the magic 10! Quite a bit of British content too, for those who are from the UK, including Luke Spooner's erie cover artwork.

Just a few important notes for authors:

Firstly, we have had to close our submissions from 1 Sept to end of year. Since we went to a paying market, even just token, we have had an inundation of submissions, and no small number of high quality. We are literally full until May 2014, and so we made the hard decision to simply close the pipeline.

However, I can say that we were amazed at the quality of material we were able to gather in our last May's edition  - special edition on Women Speculative Fiction writers, so much so that we have decided to make our 1 May editions each year themed, or special in some way. To mark the National Library of Australia's decision to allow our magazine to be perpetually archived in their Pandora project, we are going to make Edition 14 an 'Australiana' themed edition - that is, stories written in some way where Australia or Australians feature heavily. We will be seeking Australian writers, but also other nationalities. So if you keep an eye out at our site, or FB/Twitter, we will soon open a special pipeline for submissions just for that edition. If we get a lot of quality material, more than the edition can handle, we will seriously consider accepting the stories for later editions.

So, there you have it, our latest news.

regards

Gerry Huntman
Publisher, SQ Mag
www.sqmag.com

[Joe Mynhardt]

That's great, Gerry. Keep up the good work.

[gerryhuntman]

Thanks Joe

I forgot to mention that the Story Quest Short Story Contest is still active, closing end November. Prize money for top 3 positions, all short listed stories are published in SQ Mag (with payment for the trouble), and are eligible to be published in the annual 'best of' anthology. That's a triple treat through the contest. Visit www.ifwgpublishing.com and click on the contest bar link for details.

cheers

Gerry

[Laura H]

Inundated with quality stories?  That's not such a bad problem to have 

I'm excited to check out the new edition.

Congrats on your well deserved success, Gerry 

[gerryhuntman]

Thanks Laura!

The new edition has just come out

[Alice, a Country Gal]

Love hearing Good News, Gerry. 

Kudos for all your steps forward, tells me you and those you work with are doing all the right things. 

[gerryhuntman]

Thanking you!

[2par]

Very classy website. Wish I did that genre.

[gerryhuntman]

Thank you! We do our best.

[gerryhuntman]

Just an update. Despite SQ Mag being closed to submissions, we have a discrete pipeline open for edition 14, which is a special edition. I will quote the full blurb:

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

In 2013 SQ Mag had a special edition on women writers in speculative fiction. This was amazingly successful and we have decided to run each year's 1 May edition as a themed collection. We do not feel confined to any particular style or form of collection, and they can range from 'higher' themes such as women in writing, to downright straightforward entertainment and wimsy. The submissions pipe for Edition 14 is now open and the theme is 'Australiana'.

Pertinent points are:

1. 'Australiana' basically means that the story must be in an Australian setting, or the major protagonist/s are Australian, or in some other, meaningful way be associated with Australia. Other than that, the sky's the limit.
2. We will be watching out for signs of stories being 'magically transported' to an Australian setting from what was USA, or wherever - a few place name changes does not make an Australian setting, and the Editor and Publisher are both Australian.
3. This collection is open to all writers, and follows the same rules for submissions as general SQ Mag submissions, excepting points 1 and 2 above.
4. These themed pipelines tend to be of a higher standard than our general submission arrangements, and we are normally looking for something like 5 stories or so (in addition to a few solicited pieces). Consequently, if we like a story a lot but it didn't get shortlisted for the themed edition, we may slot it for another edition of SQ Mag - the author submitting the story needs to understand this when submitting.
5. As with general SQ Mag editions, we look for each speculative fiction genre being represented in our themed editions. We will be publishing in our update page a report of the spread of genres accepted - authors who are interested in submitting should seriously consider which genre/s are least represented.
6. The pipleline for the themed edition will close at COB 15 April 2014. While some submissions may be accepted fairly quickly, or rejected, the editor may place a 'hold' on some stories until mid April to finalise the stories that will be published in the edition.

Visit our submissions page to submit. http://www.sqmag.com/submissions.html

[510bhan]

What's the word limit, please, Gerry -- can't see any information about that.

EDIT: S'okay -- found it.

We do not accept simultaneous or multiple submissions. We will not publish fiction that has already been published (reprints) in any format.

Flash fiction to short story in size (less than 7,500 words) are accepted. Because our 2013 and 2014 serial slots are filled, we do not accept longer works at this time. Work slightly over 7,500 words can be accepted, but it has to be very good indeed.

[gerryhuntman]

cool 

[gerryhuntman]

Just a quick update on our Australiana edition - we have locked in the amazing Kaaron Warren as our first contributor - recent Bram Stoker and Australian Shadows Award winner. Brilliant.

While I have your attention, here's a sneak peak of our next edition's cover art (1 Nov), courtesy of Steve Santiago:



Looking forward to your contributions

Gerry

[Laura H]

Very cool, Gerry 

[Nick]

Awesome. In the long-ago days when I was a student, I'd happily have had that cover as a poster on my wall