A press release from Steve Davidson of Amazing Stories:
I’m going to start publishing magazine-type stuff on the Amazing Stories website beginning July 1st, 2012.
There’s some cool stuff that (probably) will be happening come the middle of July. In order to take advantage of that, a possible Kickstarter Campaign I’ve just started putting together and any buzz that might be generated by the upcoming Worldcon in Chicago later in the year (Chicon.org in August), I’ve decided to begin unleashing a fair amount of content that I’ve been gathering over the past several months.
But first—you must all go and visit the new front page (which will not be the permanent front page as soon as I can capture an artist and a web designer who’ll do better than I can). Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Hey, you’re back! Did you make sure to read all of the names on the cover? No? Whyever not? No, don’t bother going back, I’ll fill you in:
Fourteen of the denizens at Book View Cafe (gaggle? murder? coven? herd? group? not sure what the official word for a conglomeration of authors is—yes, we do need some copyeditors on staff) participated in a very long, convoluted and laborious email round table discussion (we may do it again but it will take a different format), with each author being the first to answer a particular question and then sending it, along with their response, along to the next author in the queue. (We should all thank Sue Lange for acting as the local cat herder.)
Those authors, in no particular alphabetical order are:
Maya Kaathryn Bahnholl, Brenda Clough, Chris Dolley, Katherine Eliska Kimbriel, Sue Lange, Vonda McIntyre, Linda Nagata, Pati Nagle, Phyllis Irene Radford, Deborah J. Ross, Sarah Smith, Jennifer Stevenson, Judith Tarr and Dave Trowbridge.
For those paying attention, please note the fine gender balance represented by this group!
If any of you are big fans of any of the foregoing, please let them know that you saw their name on the cover of Amazing Stories—and then make sure you come back, and come back often.
In addition to the original content represented by the round table discussion, we also have a few contributions from the members of our illustrious Editorial Advisory Board with homages and—dare I say it again?—Amazing Stories about Amazing Stories from none other than Barry Malzberg, Patrick L. Price and Robert Silverberg, each of whom will be re-telling you about their years with Amazing Stories and the influence(s) the magazine has had upon their careers.
Last but not least and certainly much appreciated are two pieces of donated fiction that previously appeared in an earlier incarnation of this magazine. Jack Clemons offers up his stories, “Will Little Note, Nor Long Remember” and “Tool Dresser’s Law.”
I must say that I have been mightily impressed with all of these authors’ willingness to donate their time and hard work. I’ll be happy to accept similar content from any other professionals who may be so inclined, although I hold no expectations and am not in the business of soliciting free stuff. If there is something that I can do for you with my (currently) limited resources, please feel free to ask.
And finally, for those who are keeping tabs: some things remain the same (I am still waiting until after the Presidential election to hit investors up) and other things are changing: the teasingly hinted at happenings in July may help to accelerate the process that will lead to the return of Amazing Stories in regular publication, so keep watching the skies (and your monitor, silly) and keep your fingers crossed for good things happening in mid-July.
And darn it, the real final thing: Sue Lange has prevailed upon me to re-think my engagement with Kickstarter and I’m doing so. Re-thinking that is. If anyone has any good ideas—or perhaps better yet, if anyone has a skill set that lends itself to the Kickstarter, crowd-sourcing thing (which seems to be doing very well for genre related stuff btw), please get in touch.
If you’re a genre person with a following who wants to see Amazing Stories back in regular (professional) publication and would be willing to help promote a Kickstarter campaign, I definitely want to hear from you.