Apex Digest Issue #4

[Evil Avatar]

Publisher Jason B. Sizemore sends along word that issue four of Apex Science Fiction & Horror Digest (http://www.apexdigest.com/index.shtml) is now on sale for only $5.00. Issue four contains stories from Tom Piccirilli, Bryan Smith, JA Konrath, Eugie Foster and more!


http://www.apexdigest.com/catalog/images/apex4small2.jpg (http://www.apexdigest.com/index.shtml)

[Kefkataran]

And this would be... a journal of short stories! Huzzah! ;)

[Evil Avatar]

And this would be... a journal of short stories! Huzzah! ;)

Science Fiction and Horor short stories. Sadly, they do seem to have a good quality magazine with excellent fiction and high standards. They rejected me right out of hand. ;)

[Heretic Machine]

I saw this magazine for sale in a used book store not too long ago. Thought of picking it up, it looked really well put together. Maybe I'll look into getting a subscription.

[Kefkataran]

Science Fiction and Horor short stories. Sadly, they do seem to have a good quality magazine with excellent fiction and high standards. They rejected me right out of hand.

Exactly! Science fiction and horror short stories. So certainly not all short stories are attempts at 'original' non-genre-fiction stuff. ;)

I've only got one rejection letter so far. I really need to build my list up.

[Evil Avatar]

Exactly! Science fiction and horror short stories. So certainly not all short stories are attempts at 'original' non-genre-fiction stuff. ;)

I've only got one rejection letter so far. I really need to build my list up.

This would be my second. I'm two for two.

[Kelegacy]

This would be my second. I'm two for two.
Don't feel bad. Rejection slips are like paying your dues.

You should self-publish a book of Sci-Fi/Horror/etc. with contributions from Evil Avatar forum members and call it Pure Evil: Tales of the Avatars or something like that. Then YOU can be the rejecter, not the rejectee.

[Kefkataran]

Don't feel bad. Rejection slips are like paying your dues

That's exactly why I feel my list needs to grow. :p Although my first rejection letter was from a small bit of humor I'd submitted to McSweeney's online that I still believe was comedy gold, so I have plenty of the righteous indignation!

[Kelegacy]

That's exactly why I feel my list needs to grow. :p Although my first rejection letter was from a small bit of humor I'd submitted to McSweeney's online that I still believe was comedy gold, so I have plenty of the righteous indignation!
I'm not completely sure how many rejection slips I have--maybe 5?. My problem is sending stories to magazines/journals where they don't really belong because sometimes I can't even genre-place my own pieces, which can be very hard to select a market. Many stories I have not bothered to send out, because only a couple I am truly proud of. I have a story out to Glimmer Train right now (pipedream) and another to a small publication in New York (probably a rejection slip). The one to Glimmer Train is actually pretty good, one of my favorites--because it really taxed me and some days I just sat staring at the screen...but the payoff was ultimately worth it. It's one of those stories that I wrote as I went along, and it entertained me as much to write it as I hope it does others to read it. I didn't know what was going to happen next...so I just grabbed hold and went along for the ride. Anyway, Glimmer Train is a pretty prestigious publication so I don't have too much optimism. I should have aimed a bit lower at first, but oh well. The problem with sending stories away to publications is the turnaround time; some places take goddamn forever.

Though I was amazed at how fast The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy responded to me one time. It might have been 2 weeks...amazingly fast rejection, but I appreciate that more than waiting many months...but some places have enormous slush piles, so it's nearly a given.

Good luck Kefkataran and everyone else. Kef, you should send that existentialist piece away to an editor. It's definitely experimental and many places LOVE experimental.

[amusedtoe]

Off handedly did anyone ever finish and sumbit anything for the halloween contest they'd been running? I'd started something but got distracted and lost track of it amongst my 80 other projects. :p

[Kelegacy]

Off handedly did anyone ever finish and sumbit anything for the halloween contest they'd been running? I'd started something but got distracted and lost track of it amongst my 80 other projects. :p
I wrote something but it wasn't exactly horror. It was intended to be, but it became more literary than horrific, so I decided not to send it. Sci-fi ghost stories are HARD.