Tomorrow is also the final day we’ll be accepting submissions to Issue 22: BILDUNGSROMAN. Send us your coming-of-age stories!

FICTION
“The Forever Engine” by Timothy Miller
“Centzon Totochin” by Cat Rambo
“Charismatic” by Therese Arkenberg
“The Last Mountie” by Jason S. Ridler
“Pictographology” by Jason R. Richter
“Tibet, Or At Least Boise” by Patricia McMahon

COVER ART
“A Deafened Plea For Peace” by Ben Greene

The winners of the Science in My Fiction contest have been announced! Go here to see the announcement!

Digital downloads: Add what you want to the CG cart, & at checkout use the code “GIVENOQUARTER“.

Print copies: Select the Createspace editions, & add the code “2WLPMYW6” in the Discount Code field.

The sale will last until July 31. Pick up your discounted copies now, and please spread the word!

We just received an in-progress look at the cover art for the eventual publication of Festival, too – it is hilarious, grotesque and wonderful. I can’t wait to see it in print! Look for the publication this winter!

WINNER
“Of Mice And Astronauts” by John Eric Vona

Honorable Mentions
Beth Cato, “Bless This House”
WIlliam T. Vandemark, “Christening the Leviathan”
Celestine Trinidad, “Not Ready Yet”

The winning story is published on the site for everyone to read. Congratulations to the winners, and all the finalists!

Wednesday, June 30 is the FINAL DAY to enter the Crossed Genres Science in My Fiction contest!

* 2,500-10,000 words
* SF/F inspired by a recent scientific discovery or innovation (Citation required)
* 1 entry per person
* Only unpublished work

10 finalists will be selected, and the finalists will be voted on by a panel of 6 judges:

• Athena Andreadis – Associate Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School; author of To Seek Out New Life: The Biology of Star Trek.
• Nicola Griffith – Nebula, World Fantasy, Tiptree, and Lambda Literary Award-winning author
• Michael Kabongo – Agent; owner, The Onyxhawke Agency
• Randall Munroe – Creator of the webcomic xkcd; Programmer
• Cat Rambo – Author; Managing Editor of Fantasy Magazine.
• Brett Savory – Editor-in-Chief of Chizine: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words and co-Publisher of Chizine Publications.

The winner gets a $250 prize. 2nd Place gets $100, 3rd gets $50. The top 3 stories will be published on the Crossed Genres website, and in limited-run print and digital editions. There will also be 3 Honorable Mentions.

Just one week left! Read the detailed rules, and then get those entries in!

Winners will be announced on or before July 21. The top 3 stories will be published online at the time of official announcement.

NOTE: You must register on the site to read the stories & vote. Don’t worry, it’s free & easy.

Once you’ve read the stories, at the bottom of the page is the voting poll. Select your favorite story and click “Vote”. (If we discover anyone trying to vote more than once, all of that person’s votes will be discarded. We will be checking!)

We received over 90 entries, and there were a lot of great stories, so choosing the finalists was tough. Last year, we only received 80 entries, and that was even while allowing people to enter up to 3 stories! Thanks to everyone who entered!

If you’re not a subscriber, you can read the first three chapters of A Festival of Skeletons for free!

First: Crossed Genres issue 19: Gadgets & Artifacts is up!

A great issue with some incredibly strong fiction. Please read, enjoy! And comment – the writers & artists truly appreciate it!
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Next: We’ve opened the 2nd Annual Crossed Genres Flash Fiction contest! We did one last year in June and it was so much fun we decided to do it again! The guidelines are behind the link, but short version: 100-500 words; anything SF/F; one entry per person; 1st place gets Pro rates (at least). Open for entries until June 15 only. Not much time, so better get cracking!
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Thanks to some terrific generosity, the Kickstarter to fund a print edition of the Science in My Fiction contest winners was a rousing success! Not only did we reach our goal, we surpassed it by 60%! Thank you, everyone who’s supported the pledge drive! There’s still one month left to enter the contest – stories must be submitted by the end of June 30. Get your stories in!
______________________________________________________________________________________

June is the FINAL month to read Issue 8: ANTHROPOMORPHISM! It will go away forever after June 30. Please give it a read, and if you like it consider picking up a copy while it’s still available.
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Right now we’re reading submissions to the LIES issue, accepting submissions for INVASION, and managing the SiMF and Flashfic contests. Whew! Sometimes it’s hard to keep up, but somehow we manage!

Post title from “Today is gonna be a great day” from Phineas & Ferb

Tomorrow – Monday, May 31 – is the final day to get a copy of the Science in My Fiction contest winners!

• The 1st Place winner, 2nd Place winner and 3rd Place winner bound together in print and/or ebook format
• Original cover art by wonderful artist Julie Dillon
• Original art accompanying each story (Artists TBD)

This is the ONLY time these stories will be published together. There won’t be a general release. If you’re entering the contest, and will want more than one copy should you win (the authors whose stories place in the top 3 each get a complimentary copy), now is the one chance to get them!

• A pledge of just $4 gets you a “digital bundle”: the ebook of the winners in 7 different digital formats. These formats will work for iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, B&N Nook, Sony Readers, and more. All formats are DRM-free.

• A pledge of $9 gets you the digital bundle plus a one-year online subscription to Crossed Genres, which gets you digital bundles for a year’s worth of issues. The subscription normally costs $10 on its own.

• A pledge of $15 gets you the digital bundle, the Crossed Genres subscription, and a print copy of the book – the only run of print copies there’ll be.

There are other rewards, like extra copies, and even a cartoon portrait of you (With SCIENCE!) included in the print edition. Go here to make a pledge. You have until tomorrow night!

In case you’re not on Twitter, or missed our mad excited tweeting last night: WE MADE IT! The Crossed Genres “Science in My Fiction” contest reached 100% of our goal last night!

Thank you so much to everyone who’s pledged so far. We were confident from the beginning that we’d make it, but it’s a huge worry behind us now that we’re there, and we can concentrate on having the contest results turn out brilliantly.

Of course, there are still 18 days left to the pledge drive! And the more pledges we get the better each copy will be! We know we’ll never get anywhere near these guys (and we say kudos to them, we were one of their earlier supporters), we’d love to reach the point where we can add artwork to the print copies! If you’d like to see the final versions even more impressive, please keep spreading the word. And thanks again to everyone who’s supported the contest so far!

We’re thrilled to announce that artist Julie Dillon has agreed to create artwork for the cover of the print edition of the Science in My fiction contest winners!

Julie provided the artwork for the cover of Crossed Genres’ special LGBTQ issue which was released in November:

Julie’s done work for Wizards of the Coast, Paizo Publishing, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, Fantasy Flight Games, and Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, amongst others. She was my first choice to do the cover for the SiMF contest and I’m ecstatic she has time and is enthusiastic about it.

Remember, the print edition won’t be made unless we make our pledge goal! As of this writing we’re just $65 shy of our goal. Please help spread the word and push us over the top! Thanks!

ARTWORK

The New Enlightenment by Padibut Preeyawongsakul

FICTION
I Will Come Home by Chris Fletcher
The Only Motion is Returning by Del Dryden
Goddess by Lavanya Karthik
The Last Rickshaw by Stephanie Lai
When the Earth and Sea Swapped Places by Kaolin Fire

ARTICLE
Growing Up by Joyce Chng

This is a beautiful issue that we’re immensely proud of. Please read and enjoy! If you like something, please leave a comment letting the author or artist know!

Deacon Carter’s Last Dime first appeared in Crossed Genres Issue 7 (URBAN).

ETA: Nathan is reading “Deacon Carter’s Last Dime” on Friday, April 2 at 12:30pm at Norwescon! If you’re there, go!

***********************************************

Congratulations also to Barbara Ann Wright, whose short story “Damaged On Every Level” made the Tangent Online Recommended Reading List of 2009!

Damaged On Every Level first appeared in Crossed Genres Issue 11 (HORROR).

“Here’s how it works: Authors write a science fiction or fantasy short story which is inspired by a scientific discovery or innovation made or announced within the past year. It can’t be peripherally added: the science must be integral to the story. Writers must include a link to a relevant article or study of the applied science when they submit their stories.”

A panel of 6 amazing judges will vote on the finalists. There’s $400 of cash prizes to be won, plus subscriptions, books, etc.

Please visit the contest page, read the entry guidelines, see who the judges are, and read about our Kickstarter drive to put the winning stories in print!

Then, enter your story! The contest will be open for entries from April 1 through June 30. Winners will be announced on July 21.

Show us there’s still room for real Science in fiction! Huge thanks to everyone who helped us make the contest happen!

Due to time constraints from their other responsibilities, Bart Leib and K.T. Holt are turning over the operation of “Little Death” to two colleagues:

Jaym Gates is an intern and writer with Fantasy Magazine. She also writes horror and the occasional LGBTQ romance and is a proud member of Outer Alliance. She can be found at her website or her blog.

Chris Fletcher is the editor of M-Brane SF Magazine and works tirelessly to fight fascism. He recently moved from the buckle of the Bible Belt with his boyfriend and his two cats. He is also a member of Outer Alliance. Find Chris on Twitter.

Jaym and Chris were slush readers for “Little Death” prior to agreeing to become editors; each brings valuable experience (and an open mind!) to their new role. We’re ecstatic that they’ve agreed to take over running “Little Death”!

*********************

Part 2 of this announcement!

Previously, “Little Death” had compensation for accepted submissions lower than that of Crossed Genres. Starting immediately, compensation has been raised to match Crossed Genres’ compensation. For more information visit the submission guidelines.

ANNOUNCEMENT # 1

Issue 16: STEAMPUNK is now live on the website!

Artwork

Rotterdam Bay by Shaun Lindow

FICTION

Dead’s End to Middleton by Natania Barron
Whirligig Fingers and Globular Thumbs by Polenth Blake
The Vostrasovitch Clockwork Animal and Traveling Forest Show at the End of the World by Jessica Reisman
Twentieth Century by Michael Glenn Farquhar
The Recondite Riddle of the Rose Rogue by Dawn Vogel

ARTICLE

Doctor Tsoundpounder’s Euterpean Soliliquizer by J.C. Hay

This is a fun, intriguing and eclectic issue! Please read and enjoy. And please make the writers/artists very happy and leave them a comment with what you thought!

ANNOUNCEMENT # 2

We’re excited to announce

Science in My Fiction is a new blog we’re launching to get science fiction and fantasy writers and fans thinking ahead of science again. Playful bloggers will take a look at recent scientific developments and extrapolate potential futures from them.

Science in My Fiction (or “SiMF”) will update Mondays and Fridays (to start – possibly more frequently as it develops and more contributors are added). The first post by Kay Holt is up. Please join the discussion! As Kay likes to say: It’s time to seize culture and do science to it!

Beginning with Issue 15, you can now purchase a zip file containing 7 digital file types: EPUB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PDF & PRC. Every major ebook reader and smartphone will read at least one of these files, including Kindle, B&N Nook, Sony Readers, Microsoft Reader, iPhone, Palm, Blackberry and more. All formats are DRM-free. The Issue 15 bundle is now available for $1.59 as a download from our store.

We decided to begin offering the bundles because we feel that no one should have to repurchase our issues or books if they decide to switch to a new ebook reader. This way, if you do ever switch, you should still have at least one file type which will work on your new reader. The bundle also enables you to easily have copies of the book on your mobile device as well as on your PC at home.

The Issue 15 bundle is also available to subscribers at no extra cost. Download it in the Subscribers area.

All future issues will be sold as a bundle. We will also be releasing a similar bundle soon for our anthology, Crossed Genres Year One; the price will remain $4.99.

Crossed Genres is immensely proud to announce the official release of our first yearly anthology, Crossed Genres Year One!

CGY1 is a collection of stories selected by the editors – one from each of the first twelve issues.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
01 (SciFi & Fantasy) – The Time of Tales by C.L. Rossman
02 (Dystopian) – Back To the Beginning by Marilou Goodwin
03 (Romance) – A Crazy Kind of Love by Jeremy Zimmerman
04 (Crime) – The Near-Sighted Sentinel by Adam King
05 (Humor) – Condiment Wars by Jill Afzelius
06 (Western) – Red Dust by Amanda Lord
07 (Urban) – Deacon Carter’s Last Dime by Nathan Crowder
08 (Anthropomorphism) – The Strangler Fig by Jennifer D. Munro
09 (Alternate History) – The Bat And the Blitz by Erika Tracy
10 (Child Fiction) – The Good Old-Fashioned Kind of Water by Camille Alexa
11 (Horror) – The Drain by M. Palmer
12 (LGBTQ) – Cold by Melissa S. Green

The beautiful cover art is titled “Broomstick Aviation” and was provided by Nicc Balce.

“From lovers whose needs suck away others’ life forces to the foibles of superheroes past their prime, Crossed Genres makes a tasty break from ordinary speculative fiction. This twisted group of stories both inflames and amuses. At ten bucks a pop, it is hard not to recommend its purchase.”
- Tangent Online

Crossed Genres Year One is available in print from Amazon and Createspace for $9.99. It’s also available for download directly from us as a PDF.

ARTWORK

Cover: So Much For the Fourth Wall by Nicc Balce

FICTION
The Turk in the Basement by Jason S. Ridler
The Seder Guest by Barbara Krasnoff
Keeli’s Ordeal by Scott H Andrews
Caretaker by Marilou Goodwin
The Prince of Artemis V by Jennifer Brozek

ARTICLE
Writing Our Own (Alternate) Histories: Fanwork As Folklore by C.A. Young

We’re thrilled with how this wonderful and eclectic issue came out! Please go, read and view, and enjoy!

Raised in New Orleans, Kelly Jennings teaches writing and literature at the University of Fort Smith-Arkansas. She is partway through a five-book series about Martin Eduardo and the contract labor revolution on Julian. The first book, Martin’s War, is due out with Verb Noire press early in 2010. A short story set in the same universe, Lunch Money, was published in issue 13 of Crossed Genres.

A prequel to Martin’s War, Broken Slate explores a time before the revolution, when Martin was a contract – little better than a slave. In this tense and personal story, Martin is forced to confront the reality that he has greater responsibilities than to himself.

Broken Slate will be serialized for subscribers on the Crossed Genres website beginning in July 2010. After the serialization is complete, Crossed Genres will publish Broken Slate in its entirety.

Ebeneezer Sink knows when people will die. It’s a useful talent for a mortician, but when someone starts raising the dead, Sink must hoist his fishnets, find a serial killer, and save the city from a crazed necromancer (really, is there any other kind?).

If only it were that simple…

RJ Astruc’s darkly comic novel will be serialized exclusively for subscribers on the Crossed Genres website. At the end of its serialization, A Festival of Skeletons will be published in its entirety by Crossed Genres.

Subscribers can follow this link to begin reading A Festival of Skeletons. If you wish to subscribe to gain access, please go here.

For more information please contact Crossed Genres (questions@crossedgenres.com).

ART:
Cover: A Magical Oak by Nicolas Gouny:

FICTION:
Man-Driven Steel by Ryan Kinkor
The Vanishing Sea by Caleb Jordan Schulz
Gaasyendietha by Marie Robertson
The Flute-Maker’s Daughter by Jessica J. Lee
The Tree by C.W. Johnson
Sealskin by Ann Chatham

A beautiful cover and some sharp, strong writing this month! Please read, enjoy, and leave the writers and artist a comment or two!

The Little Death of Crossed Genres is a quarterly magazine of erotic science Fiction and Fantasy. It is the second magazine Kay and I are founding and editing!

Each issue will contain 6-9 short stories and 1-3 pieces of art. We’re open to stories of all forms of sexual orientation/preference, and will be reserving space in each issue for queer fiction, as well as UST fiction (That’s Unrelated Sexual Tension). Issues will be released exclusively in digital formats for download.

Chris Fletcher and Jaym Gates have agreed to be slush readers for Little Death – we’ll bring in more help if needed. Kay and I will be handling the editing (for now, anyway, unless we get swamped with submissions!) Please follow Little Death on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cg_littledeath

Submissions are now open! There are details on the submissions page, and more info in the FAQ.

We’re incredibly excited about Little Death; we’re looking forward to seeing just how creative all of you writers and artists can be! Bring us your most wild, wacky and wicked creations!

Thank you, everyone who’s kept this under wraps until now, and thanks to everyone who’s helped us reach the point where we feel confident enough to take this leap in starting Little Death!

(Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…)

• Switched from 100-copy limit to Print-On-Demand with no limit
• Switched from paying copy to token cash payments
• Began offering digital editions
• Had simultaneous heart attacks when Piers Anthony agreed to write an article
• Built a completely new website from the ground up (Thanks Matt!)
• Held our first Flash Fiction contest in June
• Had one of our covers BoingBoinged
• Had a bit of controversy
• Brought aboard slush readers to help us save time
• Released an oversized 12th issue
• Releasing our first Anthology (ongoing)
• Serializing our first novel online (coming in January)
• Passed 150,000 pageviews in our first year!!!

Whew! And that’s just the “major” points!

Another thing that is absolutely worth noting is that we reached our financial goal in November!

Now, that doesn’t mean we didn’t lose money – we did, and quite a lot of it. But we had hoped to raise enough money from sales of issue 12 and preorders of the anthology to cover our expenses above and beyond the magazine itself – in other words, we wanted to reach the point where we only had to pay for the magazine itself out-of-pocket, not our various other projects that are in the works. We just barely made it, but we did! Thank you so much, everyone who helped; whether it was with a purchase, a donation, or simply spreading the word, we needed every bit of help we got (really, we JUST made it), and we’re deeply grateful to everyone.

What this means is that all our current projects are ON, as well as the continuation of the magazine of course. And more projects… well, we won’t be starting any more until we have the funds to cover them ahead-of-time. It’s a shame because we have SO MUCH we’d like to do, so many ideas, but it is the smart and practical thing to do. This doesn’t mean we won’t be bringing you new stuff – it just means that the new stuff will happen depending on how much you all want it! We may do fundraising drives for specific projects in the future too. We’ll see how it goes. For the next few months we’ve got plenty on our plate anyway!

And because we have plenty on our plate already, We’ve finally surrendered to the reality that we need to defer more CG responsibilities to others. Letting go of our “baby” is tough, but we really need the time. The slush readers have definitely saved us time, so it makes sense to seek similar aid.

With this in mind, we’ve asked Kelly Jennings to come aboard and help with Fiction editing. Kelly is the author of Lunch Money, which appears in the just-released Action/Adventure issue. She’s Associate Professor (English) at University of Arkansas Fort Smith, and holds a PhD in English. She’s also written multiple novels, one of which will be published by Verb Noire in early 2010.

Kelly will be responsible for editing the fiction pieces we select for inclusion in the magazine; she’ll work with the writers to complete final drafts. She’s remarkably fast and efficient with revisions, and a pleasure to work with on top of that, so she’s very well-suited to what we need. Kelly will be added to the About page as soon as we have her bio; please welcome her aboard!

As you all no doubt know, Issue 13 just came out! We’re very pleased with this one: the writing is very strong from start to finish, and the cover art is so much FUN. Plus, it’s our first-ever dragon on any of our covers – about time!

Submissions to Issue 14 were amazing. We ended up getting more subs than any other issue except the LGBTQ issue. We feared that NaNoWriMo might cause a drop in submissions, but it was the opposite. Apparently Folklore really struck a chord with writers! And we may have set ourselves up for a similar December – we’ve already gotten a surprising number of submissions on day 1. Of course, having 14 genres to choose from could have something to do with it.

We’re reading furiously, and we’re almost through everything. We’ll be making our final selections and emailing authors in the next day or two.

- Five exciting tales of fantastic adventure!
- Article Influencing Winter Song by author Colin Harvey
- Playfully thrilling cover art High Sky Piracy by Jenna Vincent

Please enjoy!

Editing is under way. Kay’s taken care of some of it, and I’ve done a bit too; tomorrow I’m busting my butt to finish it. Everyone who submitted to the A/A issue should have received an email by now; if you haven’t please send a query.

Submissions to the Folklore issue are coming in at a steady clip. It’s almost as though people were waiting for it… go figure, right? We’re thrilled to see that, of course, and hope it keeps up. At the current rate we’d get right back up to the numbers we were seeing for issues 10 & 11, which would be terrific. (More is even better!)

Last thing: Please help us reach our goal of 150 anthology preorders! I know we’ve been pushing it, but with good reason: If we don’t reach the 150 mark on preorders, we may be forced to postpone the anthology! It’s a very expensive process to release this collection, and it comes directly on the heels of the oversized Issue 12. We’re still paying for CG mostly out of our pockets, but the anthology pushes beyond our financial limits. The preorder only costs ($9 plus shipping), and gets you a print copy of the anthology (shipped in January) and a free online subscription to CG, where you can download digital editions of issues and, starting in January, will have exclusive content just for subscribers.

Here’s some extra incentive to preorder the anthology: If we reach our goal of 150 preorders, we will randomly select 3 people who purchased a preorder, and will donate 1 copy of the anthology to the library of each of those people’s choice! Plus, for every 25 preorders beyond that, we’ll select another person at random for the same thing! (NOTE: The library giveaway is for ALL preorders, including those already purchased. If you’ve placed your order already, your name will be in the drawing!)

So get a copy for yourself, and maybe win a free copy for your local library! And please, help spread the word! Thanks!

- 112,000 to 160,000 words of fiction (depending on which issues you pick)
- Plus, all the articles, interviews, reviews and artwork
- 37% off the cost of buying them separately
- One zip file to download (a link will be emailed to you)

When you make your purchase, be sure to specify which 5 issues you want in the comments section on the purchase page. We’ll make a zip file of those 5 issues, upload it to a secure place and email you a link. We have to do it this way – there are 6,720 different combinations of 5 issues to be made from the 8 available (and that number will increase significantly when each subsequent issue comes out)!

(NOTE: Issues 1, 2, 3 & 4 were never available in digital formats because of the agreements we have with the contributors. Because of this, those four issues aren’t available for this offer.)

Go here to get your issues!

We decided that “Parents” was a little too undefined, and we want to refine it before making it a monthly genre. It will almost certainly return in some form in the future. Instead – and taking into account that we’ve given less warning for this than in previous months – we’ve decided to make December a retrospective month.

Submissions for December may use ANY genre from the first 14 issues of Crossed Genres. Had a story you didn’t quite manage to finish in time during a previous month? Discover Crossed Genres after we’d already done your favorite genre? Now’s your chance!

Here’s a list of genres:

1 – Fantasy & Science Fiction (must include BOTH)
2 – Dystopian
3 – Romance
4 – Crime
5 – Humor
6 – Western
7 – Urban
8 – Anthropomorphism
9 – Alternative History
10 – Child Fiction
11 – Horror
12 – LGBTQ
13 – Action/Adventure
14 – Folklore

As always, the theme(s) must be combined with some aspect of Science Fiction and/or Fantasy. (As well as whatever else you manage to slip in!) Please wait to submit to “Any Previous Genre” until December 1.

NOTE: Please do not resubmit a story which you submitted to Crossed Genres during one of the previous months! We’re looking for new submissions!

Please email with any questions.

We’ve selected one story from each of our first 12 issues to represent that issue’s genre:

Issue 01 (SciFi & Fantasy) – “The Time of Tales” by C.L. Rossman
Issue 02 (Dystopian) – “Back To the Beginning” by Marilou Goodwin
Issue 03 (Romance) – “A Crazy Kind of Love” by Jeremy Zimmerman
Issue 04 (Crime) – “The Near-Sighted Sentinel” by Adam King
Issue 05 (Humor) – “Condiment Wars” by Jill Afzelius
Issue 06 (Western) – “Red Dust” by Amanda Lord
Issue 07 (Urban) – “Deacon Carter’s Last Dime” by Nathan Crowder
Issue 08 (Anthropomorphism) – “The Strangler Fig” by Jennifer D. Munro
Issue 09 (Alternate History) – “The Bat And the Blitz” by Erika Tracy
Issue 10 (Child Fiction) – “The Good Old-Fashioned Kind of Water” by Camille Alexa
Issue 11 (Horror) – “The Drain” by M. Palmer
Issue 12 (LGBTQ) – “Cold” by Melissa S. Green

The anthology will be released on February 1, 2010. And during the month of November, we’re offering a preorder special! Order now and get 10% off the regular price, plus a free 1-year online subscription to Crossed Genres! Normally you’d pay $20 for these, but for the next 30 days you get them for $9! Go here for more details and to place your preorder!

FICTION:
“Crawl” by Kate Bachus
“Cold” by Melissa S. Green
“Finished” by C.A. Young
“The Tale of the Innocent Little Mermaid Statue” by Megan Rose Gedris
(with accompanying art)
“Mismatch” by Shay Darrach
“Heart of Venus” by Michael G. Farquhar
“Stay” by Angela Kroeger
“Woodwork” by Aditya Bidikar
“DEMM Wizard” by Deirdre M. Murphy
“Me And Susannah” by Tuulia Saaritsa

NONFICTION:
“Heinlein’s Friday: A Trans Novel?” by Cheryl Morgan
“Why Gay Sci Fi And Fantasy Is Important” by Lee Wind

An interview with author and outlaw Kate Bornstein

ARTWORK:
“Untitled” by Julie Dillon (Cover)
“Don’t tell Galvatron, but Shock Fleet’s lookin’ at him funny” by
David Willis
Story art by Megan Rose Gedris (accompanying her story)
“Entwined” by Katoo Deziel
“Beauty And the Blob” by Michelle Gruben

Please read and enjoy! If you like something, let the writer or artist know by leaving a comment. And best of all, please tell others by posting in blogs or forums! A number of people have asked for ads to display, so I made some up:

728w x 90h
468w x 60h
234w x 60h
160w x 600h
125w x 125w

(These are some fairly standard ad sizes.)

Thank you to everyone who’s supported us during our first year!

The 78,000-word A Festival of Skeletons will begin its serial run in January 2010. It will be on http://crossedgenres.com, exclusively for subscribers. The serialization will be completed in October 2010.

After the serialization is complete, Crossed Genres will publish A Festival of Skeletons in its entirety in print and digital formats. The publication date is December 1, 2010 (subject to change).

A Festival of Skeletons will be edited by K.T. Holt and published under the Crossed Genres label.

“Horrorific” by Jonatan Iversen-Ejve

FICTION
Coded Obsession by Richard S. Levine
The Drain by M. Palmer
Damaged On Every Level by Barbara Ann Wright
Increased Tolerance by K. Eason
Conversation Piece by Lawrence Conquest

ARTICLE
A Witch By Any Other Name by Cynthia Jerkins

INTERVIEW
Bestselling author Mary Roach

ARTWORK

“Uranophobia” by Erika “Thrivis” Harm

Please read, view and enjoy!

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A few quick notes because it’s 1am and OMG I’m tired:

1) We’re up this late because there was a glitch with our website which wouldn’t allow me to change anything. It made it kind of impossible to actually release the issue. I managed to get Matt on chat, and he figured out what was wrong. Phew! Luckily it was just a little issue with an update our host had made that took no time to fix – just had to figure out what was wrong first.

2) Submissions to Issue 12 so far exceeded our expectations – I really need to learn to shut up when I start lamenting slow submissions. The rush this month just decided to wait until the last 36 hours, that’s all. We got absolutely SLAMMED. Halfway through the 29th I didn’t think we’d match the previous month’s totals, and we ended up exceeding our previous best month by 29%. WOW. We tried to keep up with reading last night and today, but there was just no way – we currently have about 80,000 words of unread stories. I guess that’s all we’ll be doing for the next couple of days. Thank you thank you THANK YOU to everyone who helped us spread the word about this issue. I already knew it would be great, but now I have confidence it can be spectacular.

3) Speaking of helping spread the word: Would anyone who put the ad calling for submissions on their blog or website please take it down now? We’re no longer accepting submissions to the issue and we don’t want to have anyone get the wrong idea. Thanks! (If anyone wants to host an ad for the issue that simply tells of it’s impending release, let me know and I’ll make it available.)

I know there’s a lot more to say but I’m just too tired. Enjoy the issue, and I’ll make another post tomorrow, with the name of the winner in the Submission Guestimate Contest, amongst other things. I’ll also have some percentages/demographics soon that I might share if anyone’s interested.

COVER ART

“Marshmallow Cat!” by Carl Pearce

FICTION
The Good Old-Fashioned Kind of Water by Camille Alexa
Power Loss Shift Three Report by Michael Albers
Unsound by Shanna Germain
Designer Kid by Kim Sheard
The Right Field Demon by Jason Gross
The Brave Girl by Alexa Wyndham

ARTICLES
The Joy of Writing For Tweens by Laura Schaefer
Guys Lit Wire: History by Colleen Mondor

REVIEW
Percy Jackson And the Olympians by Rick Riordan – Review by Aline Hunt

Please enjoy, and let us – and the writers and artists – know what you think! Thanks!

Thanks to Cory Doctorow for posting it!

FICTION
The Bat And the Blitz by Erika Tracy
Dry Rivers by Athena Andreadis
Hetsie’s Wonders by Layla Lawlor
Brahma’s Missile by Kimberley Long-Ewing
A Matter of Possession by Joyce Chng
The Sworn Affidavit of Edward Dunstan Merkle, US ret by Craig Allen

NONFICTION
Here Our Story Begins: Venturing Into Alternative Historical Fiction by author Walter Hunt

INTERVIEW
Interview with author Dave Freer

COVER ARTWORK
Free At Last by Brianna Wu (with Frank Wu)

We’re very pleased with this issue. Enjoy!

Runners-Up:
“Go-Green Grass” – Lauren McBride
“The Greatest Show In the Galaxy” – Marie Robertson
“Grand-Monster” – Sasha Janel McBrayer

Congratulations to you all, and thank you to everyone who participated!

FICTION
“Epidermal” by Aaron Wilsford
“The Strangler Fig” by Jennifer D. Munro
“A Hatful of Rabbits” by Benjamin Jacobson
“The Last Collector” by Jeromy K. Smith
“In the Image And Likeness” by Aleta Johansen

INTERVIEWS
Bioscientist & Author Athena Andreadis
Writer & Editor Jennifer Brozek

ARTWORK
Cover: “Merry-go-round” by Kasey Gifford
Inside: “Clockwork Man At the Beach” by Jeromy K. Smith

Please enjoy!

P.S. – a couple of the entries had a glitch that caused us to not receive the email addresses of the submitters, including 2 of the finalists. We’ve sent emails to the finalists that we can. If you’re a finalist (your story is on the contest page) and haven’t received an email, please email us! Thanks!

We ended up with over EIGHTY submissions, a terrific turnout! We’ll be reading them all over the next few days, and picking our favorite 10. On Monday June 22 (1 week from today) we’ll announce the top 10. They’ll be posted on the site – WITHOUT the names of the writers, so it’s anonymous. Everyone will have the chance to visit the site, read all the submissions and vote on your favorites! Voting will be open until the end of the month. On July 2, we’ll announce the winners!

Thanks to all the wonderful people who’ve participated!

Cover Art:
Anthenagin’ (?) by Paul Davey

Fiction:
Neat Alyssum by Phoebe Matthews
Deacon Carter’s Last Dime by Nathan Crowder
Our Lady of the Mantilla by Jessica Reisman
Mars-side by C.B. Calsing
Strictly Business by Hereward Proops

Interview:
literary agent Michael Kabongo

As always, Crossed Genres is free to read online. Please read, and if you enjoy it, please let the writers & artists know with a comment on the website!

Yesterday (meaning Saturday) was another “tying up loose ends” day. I finished up a couple of the webpages… the new “Current Genre” page specifically, plus touching up one or two others. Plus there was more Project Wonderful stuff. We also read a bit more from the Issue 8 submissions. They continue to come in, and we’re approaching last month’s totals. Not sure if we’ll match it, but it’ll be close – we always get a few submissions on the last day of the month. I also did a bunch of final prep for the aforementioned sale!

A lot of time today was spent preparing for Baz’s party too. Fortunately we knew this was coming so we’d gotten most of the issue sorted early so we’d have time. There will be LOTS of ice cream, and cake and pizza and soda and possibly at least one diabetic coma. Bastian will be overstimulated from the party and people and hopped up on sugar. It’ll be a blast!

If you’re so inclined, we’d love for people to help celebrate Baz’s birthday, wherever you are! Between 10am and noon US Eastern time on Sunday, eat some ice cream in honor of Baz! Leave a comment that you did to let us know! And if you want, send a picture of your ice cream gorging to cg@crossedgenres.com and I’ll post them!

Oh yeah, we have an issue coming out too, or something. Right. Well, I’ll talk about that in tonight’s post.

Coming up next: FUN!

If there’s anything important to know about Bart and I, it’s that we share two great loves: Science Fiction/Fantasy, and our son Bastian. Many of you have already figured out the most obvious connection between our SFF love and our parental love, but for those who missed it, YES, we did name our firstborn child after the main character in THE NEVERENDING STORY by Michael Ende. And yes, we know our ‘geek’ is showing.

As proud parents of both an imaginative little boy and an imaginative little magazine, we’ve decided to celebrate both on one auspicious occasion; that of Bastian’s 3rd birthday this coming Sunday. How will we do that? By encouraging you to share the imagination! And since we can’t/won’t offer up Bastian (though we sometimes lend him out), we’re offering up the magazine!

On Sunday (5/31), readers will once again be able to subscribe to Crossed Genres for only $7.50! But here’s the catch: during the sale, you need to buy a subscription for someone else! You’ll be given the chance to buy a “coupon” (for $7.50) good for a 100% discount off a 1-year subscription. Just give that coupon to a friend or relative (or a complete stranger) and they can come to the site to sign up for their free subscription! And if you do buy a subscription for someone else, then you can also buy one at the discounted price for yourself! Remember, that’s an entire year of free downloadable issues PLUS access to subscribers-only content for less than the cost of a single hardcopy issue!

Due to space constraints and budget concerns (not to mention the vast physical distances between many of us), we can’t invite everyone to the party we’re throwing for Bastian at our house. But even though you can’t all come decorate your own ice cream monstrosities with us, you can still celebrate imagination by sharing Crossed Genres with the people you love. (How’s that for a sales pitch?)

So I think you can guess what I spent most of today working on. Fortunately the process was much faster since I knew what I was doing. I’ll get to Issue 5 soon too. As I mentioned before, the Issue 6 .prc will stay available in the subscribers area for a couple of weeks extra since it took so long to get it ready.

As you probably saw in my earlier post, we’re hosting a Flash Fiction contest! We’ve already started getting submissions. Prizes include free subscriptions and a small cash prize for the winner! Consider submitting!

I spent a while today doing final prep for the contest – mainly preparing the page on the site. I also took care of a few little details, like mailing the last contract I needed to, and setting up a couple of coupon codes (which we’ll use for the winners of the contest).

Science Fiction/Fantasy submissions of 100-500 words will be accepted from now through June 14. We’ll pick our 10 favorites, and post them on the website for readers to vote on. There are prizes for the top 4 vote-getters, including free subscriptions and a small cash prize for the winner!

Check out http://crossedgenres.com/contest/ for more details and to enter.

Oh, and don’t forget – only 5 more days to submit stories for Issue 8 (Anthropomorphism)!

* 20,000-40,000 words
* Science Fiction and/or Fantasy. (matching the Current Genre is not required)
* $20 compensation

This is something we’ve been thinking about for a while, and we finally decided to re-allocate some of our budget for it. The plan is to publish one novella per month, so there’s a new one being serialized at every moment!

Click here for more details!
__________________________________________________________________________

Today was spent mostly prepping for the above announcement. I spent some time familiarizing myself with Project Wonderful as well – it’s really a fascinating model. I watched our first day’s bids with interest. At some point we’ll probably be advertising through PW ourselves.

I also worked some more on the Print edition of Issue 7, prepping the formatting of the document so it’s ready to have the content added. I have to get back to some writers first thing tomorrow about the edits to their stories.

ETA: P.S. – Go register on the site (free!) and leave comments for writers and artists!

• Easier navigation
• blog and announcement feeds via almost any network, or via email
• Comments!

It’s that last one I hope everyone will take advantage of. You can now create your own login on the site, which enables you to leave comments in response to the various issues, or individual stories, articles and art! If you read or saw something that you really appreciated, please take a couple seconds to leave a post letting the writer/artist know!

I’m still working on figuring out how to give Subscribers access to the Subscribers section. Hopefully I’ll make it work tomorrow.

In other news, all Issue 7 stories have been edited and sent back to their authors. I have some returned comments from a couple stories that I’ll be looking over tomorrow.