Small Press Zines
Mar. 1st, 2005 08:27 amThere's an interesting discussion going on at the moment at the Nightshade forums, titled 'The resurgence of the small press zine'. It starts out as an enquiry about what zines are out there--things like Flytrap, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Electric Velocipede, and so on--and moves on to consideration of the value of such outlets. Following the suggestion that the pro mags are 'too conservative' for the material being published in the zines, Ellen Datlow responds:
Anyway, there's more in the thread and it's all good, including Jeffrey Ford pointing out that any distinction between 'experimental' and 'traditional' fiction is essentially meaningless. What it did make me think about, though, was Hugo nominations. You'll be hearing a lot more from me about Hugo nominations over the next couple of days, but it just occurred to me that there's actually no category in which LCRW or Electric Velocipede are actually eligible for anything. They're not big enough to be semiprozines, and they're not fanzines; Locus put them in a category of their own, 'the miniscule press'. Have I got this right, or are they actually eligible in one of the categories? Anyone?
In fact, I'll go further. I read all the boutique magazines mentioned above and others-- and they're basically just mixing genres and throwing in some mainstream. Some of the stories they publish are good. Others not as good. Very few break any kind of new ground in form or content. But overall, if you read all those magazines all the time only a few of the stories stand out. This is not to put them down but to put things in perspective. They aren't doing anything that hasn't been done before. It's always a positive to create more markets for good writers. More markets encourage more writers to continue to write short fiction.And then on to why some writers, such as Jeff Vandermeer, aren't appearing much in the major venues:
Early on, I sent Ellen tons of stuff at Omni. Some of it, frankly, sucked, and some of it didn't fit Omni's brief. Since she's gone online I've had to overcome my natural aversion to submitting original fiction to non-hardcopy venues (which I'm over now). But now the problem is I'm writing very little short fiction and a lot of it gets snatched up by specific anthology venues. So Ellen's right--she's seen maybe 3 or 4 stories from me in the last few years. She didn't get a look at "Three Days" or "Secret Life," for example. I've decided to become more systematic in my approach with the short fiction I do have, so she will be seeing just about everything first from now on. Which doesn't guarantee anything. It's very *wrong* to assume an editor is not open to surreal or cross-genre work just because they're not taking *your* work.And Gordon van Gelder talks about balancing commerce and art:
As I've been reading through this thread, the comments of one veteran editor keep ringing in my head---he said to me, "Of course Analog is selling better than any other magazine: it's the least risky."For what it's worth, I think 'Keyboard Variations' may be my favourite story of the year so far.
I bring up that comment, I guess, to defend against the charge of a conservative attitude in F&SF. I don't particularly like that word, "conservative," but I'll be the first to say that I've got to balance the artistic side of things with the commercial side. For every reader who appreciates the challenge that a story like John McDaid's "Keyboard Variations" offers, there are two or three readers who favor less challenging work like Ron Goulart's lighter fare.
Anyway, there's more in the thread and it's all good, including Jeffrey Ford pointing out that any distinction between 'experimental' and 'traditional' fiction is essentially meaningless. What it did make me think about, though, was Hugo nominations. You'll be hearing a lot more from me about Hugo nominations over the next couple of days, but it just occurred to me that there's actually no category in which LCRW or Electric Velocipede are actually eligible for anything. They're not big enough to be semiprozines, and they're not fanzines; Locus put them in a category of their own, 'the miniscule press'. Have I got this right, or are they actually eligible in one of the categories? Anyone?