Author: Angelique Fawns

The Human Adventure is Just Beginning!

DreamForge Year 5 Kickstarter

By Angelique Fawns

DreamForge is my favorite positive Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. Not only do I belong to the DreamCasters writing group, but I am a member of their Patron and love the rewards in their Kickstarters! What better way to start the summer than with a new campaign? We have till Wednesday June 21st to help bring another year of fantastic stories and art into world. The goals this year are to:

 

• Add an extra anthology-sized Mega Issue with the theme “The Grand Uplift.”
• $500 Bonus for Best Story of the Year, voted by Readers.
• Setting a Stretch Goal of raising their pay rate to $0.08/word.
• Present more positive worlds to optimistic readers and with webinars and the DreamCaster writing group, help more hopeful writers find their voice and improve their fiction.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scotnoel/dreamforge-magazine-year-5/

 

Scot Noel, editor and publisher of DreamForge gave me some insights on the magazine and campaign. 

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Juliana Rew & The Rhapsody of the Spheres.

By Angelique Fawns

Since opening its doors more than a decade ago, Third Flatiron has been producing award-winning anthologies and providing a unique voice in the speculative world. Their last collection, After the Gold Rush had numerous top ten finishers in this year’s Critters Awards, and many stories on the Tangent Online Recommended Reading List. (Including my story, “The Last of the Gen Xers.”)

Juliana Rew, a writer herself, has recently released a new short story collection Twelve All in Dread: The Twelfth Witch and Other Stories. An imaginative group of medieval-inspired tales, you can sample it on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQFVDQT9

I’m very excited to hear Third Flatiron is producing another anthology called The Rhapsody of the Spheres, which will be open to subs the latter part of May. Doesn’t the title get your imagination working in overdrive? What does it even mean? 

Hint: Read the interview below to find out more.

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Lloyd Penney & Amazing Stories Magazine

By Angelique Fawns

 

Amazing Stories had its 97th birthday in April. This juggernaut of magazines credits itself as the very first science fiction magazine started in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback. Stephen King talks about receiving rejections from this publication at the beginning of his career. Lloyd Penney has taken over at the helm of Amazing Stories and would like to encourage authors to send him the hardest science fiction stories they can create. I sat down with this fellow Canadian editor to learn more. 

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Ai Jiang talks about being a Nebula Finalist

By Angelique Fawns

 

Ai Jiang’s short story “Give Me English” was announced as a Nebula Finalist this March. Her speculative short was published in the 5-6/22 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Jiang is one of six authors in the running for this prestigious award. This Canadian-Chinese writer has been taking the industry by storm with her work appearing in Uncanny, The Dark Magazine, Pseudopod, The Deadlands, and Dark Matter to name a few. Dark Matter magazine says, “Jiang is widely considered to be one of the most exciting young voices in science fiction, fantasy and horror.”

Jiang mixes the literary with speculative elements and I touched base with her to learn more about her amazing achievement.

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Kristi Petersen Schoonover from 34 Orchard

By Angelique Fawns

 

All is not dark in the world of Kristi Petersen Schoonover. Though this prolific creator in the world of horror publishes a “literary journal that delights in exploring what haunts us all,” her life has been full of positive happenings. She’s had several short stories of her own recently published, including “Let the Rain Settle It” in Hush, Don’t Wake the Monster, Stories Inspired by Stephen King and “When the Ghost Apples Blossom” in Monstorm: A Charity Anthology of Horror (100 percent of proceeds go to a food bank in the area that Hurricane Ian affected). She’s the editor for an anthology titled Wicked Sick, due to be released in April, for the New England Horror Writers, with a Foreword written by Stephen Mark Rainey. Finally, she’s been commissioned to write the screenplay for the second film in a horror movie franchise. In the Candlewood series, Candlewood: Jerusalem will focus on the urban legends surrounding a drowned town under the lake. 

Kristi Petersen Schoonover is one of those rare editors who takes the time to mentor new writers, and she has been instrumental in helping me sell several of my stories. I’ve submitted many times to her market, and even if she hasn’t bought a story, she has given me hints and edits that helped make them saleable. I’m thrilled to announce I finally wrote a story she accepted, and “The Unidentified Flying Object” will be appearing in a future issue of 34 Orchard. 

I sat down with Schoonover for a catch-up.

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Justine Norton-Kerston on Horror in Solarpunk

By Angelique Fawns

Justine Norton-Kertson (they/she/he) envisions a brighter future for all of us, but also embraces the dark side. They are the co-editor-in-chief of Solarpunk Magazine, a bi-monthly magazine of radically hopeful and optimistic science fiction, fantasy, and climate fiction. They recently edited the lunarpunk anthology Bioluminescent which was released this January in conjunction with Android Press. If the genre interests you, they also have a nonfiction book, Solarpunk Witchcraft due to be released by Microcosm Publishing in 2024.  I sat down with Justine to learn more about their vision and talk about the intersection of horror with solarpunk.

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Rebecca Treasure: A Walk on the Short Dark Side

By Angelique Fawns

 

I met Rebecca Treasure when I took her course this February, Keep it Short: Tips and Tricks for Writing Flash Fiction through the Reach Your Apex initiative from Apex Magazine. It was nothing “short” of amazing. Apex Magazine features dark speculative fiction, so I asked Rebecca if she could talk to us about her work for WIHM.  She has been published in Zooscape, Seize the Press, Galaxy’s Edge, Air & Nothingness Press, and The Dread Machine, to name a few. 

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