Creating through choices,

“You are creating through your choices, even now. Choose wisely.”

― Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason

I apologize up front for posting such a stream of consciousness entry.

I’ve been slowly going through the submissions for about two weeks now. I’ve honestly been overwhelmed and awed.

Overwhelmed by the massive response, we’ve received around 300 subs so far.

Awed by the outstanding quality of the majority of the stories that I’ve read so far.

The quality of the writing and the stories has been so high that there has only been a small handful of tales that I could quickly dismiss after reading only a page or two.

Every other submission has required and deserved a full reading. This makes for slow going.

I’m hoping to have everything read by the end of April (Knock on wood.)

To keep on top of thing, I plan on sending out the first round of rejections this weekend.

I’ve never done this before and realize from my own experiences as a writer how painful a rejection can be. I’m not looking forward to this one bit.

This biggest challenge will be the winnowing process at the end.

I already have more outstanding material on hand than we can use this issue.

And God only knows how much wonderful material will be on hand 5 weeks from now.

The plan is to have as wide a range of voices, styles, and genres as possible.

So there will be only so much room each for Dark Fantasy, Traditional Horror, Literary Horror, Straight Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy, Bizarro, Weird SF, Poetry ect.

I want that the reader to be surprised by each story that they read. I want them to wonder “what comes next?”

And most importantly, I want each story, regardless of type, to be an extremely enjoyable and satisfying experience.

Hopefully the reader will, after finishing each tale, think to themselves “That was a good story!”

With this in mind, I look at each submission and ask myself one simple question.

Did it satisfy?

And I pray that it pays off since so much is riding on this first issue.

Because as difficult as it is, I’m being a real bastard as far as selecting goes.

As much as the magazine depends on its writers, it’s the reader who has to be convinced and won over at the end of the day. 

So in the end, my greatest responsibility is to them.

Take care.

Doug

If it's too good to be true then it probably is!

The stories are starting to roll and so far I've recognized 6 name authors!

That's a pretty good start considering that submissions haven't been open for 24 hours yet!

I jokingly told David the other day that wouldn't it be grand if Stephen King tossed us a bone for old times sake.

Well this morning i peeked in my mail box before going to work and lo and behold!

There was a submission from "Stephen King"!

I didn't have time to open it since I was running late. I figured I'd just open it once i got to work.

I was in ecstasy during my entire commute.

I got to the lab, fired up the PC and opened my mails.

Went straight to the submission from Mr. King and my head almost exploded.

The submission was from Stephen King alright!

"STEPHEN H. KING"!!!

He said in the cover letter that he likes to call himself "The other Stephen King".

Well, you know what Mr. Stephen H. King?

I like to call myself the guy who probably won't read your submission.

To be fair to Mr. other King though, it's my own fault for hoping for the impossible.

So I don't have anyone to blame except for myself.

I should have known better.

I'll write him in a few days after I calm down.

Take care.

Doug

Issue #31 cover

Hi,
We managed to get a piece of never before published cover art from none other than Mr. Stephen Fabian himself!!

The submissions portal is also now open!

We're on our way!

Mr. Fabians title is "Floralee"

It's been a good day.

The start of something beautiful: Weirdbook is back

I'm honestly hoping that this is the start of something big. A week ago I would have believed anyone who would have told me that David and I would be reviving Weirdbook with Paul Ganley's blessing.

This is what happened.

 I was sitting a work during lunch eating some mediocre micro-wave chili and musing that would it be nice if someone would bring back Weirdbook.

Then I thought "Shit! Paul's a publisher and world class writer, maybe I can talk him into this".

I wrote to Paul and tossed out my bad-chili fueled pipe dream.

He was all for it.

I wrote to Paul Ganley laying out our plan for a Weirdbook arrival.

Paul conferred with a certain Darrell Schweitzer. Darrell must have failed to talk Paul out of it seeing that he went and gave us his blessing anyways. He even agreed to be our Editor Emeritus.

David is Senior Editor and Publisher and I am the fiction and managing editor.

What may surprise people is that I offered  Paul "Kill-Switch Powers" in case he would ever be unhappy or dissatisfied with our efforts.

David and I got started soon as Paul gave his go ahead.

David is currently working on the layout and I set up a website, Facebook group and this blog.

It looks as though we have Steve Santiago lined up as our interior illustrator for our first issue which will be #31.

The layout will stick closely, but not slavishly, to the original layout designed by Paul

Since we are paying out of our own pockets, no KICKSTART here,  payment will be only $20.00-$30.00 for our first issue. We intend to reinvest a large part of the profits into the next issue with the intention of raising our rates as we go along.

As far as content goes, we plan on offering the best genre fiction available. This includes weird, horror, weird SF, dark fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, and everything in between.

Our goal is to ENTERTAIN and not to impress the critics. I can't begin to describe how excited and happy we all are. David and I are extremely fortunate to have received Paul's trust and support.

We have no intentions of letting either Paul or you, the reader, down.

Lastly all of us wish to thank all of you for the amazing out pouring of support and good will that we have been shown since announcing  the re-launch of Weirdbook!

Take care and come back.

Douglas Draa

Managing & Fiction Editor Weirdbook