Niteblade

Posts Tagged ‘announcement’

Nominating for the Pushcart Prize is always difficult. Picking six works from all Niteblade has published over the year? It’s freaking tough. If you think I’m exaggerating, take a look over our archives and try to choose the six works you’d nominate from four issues. See? Hard.

This year it was made even more tricksy by the fact I was nominating not only from Niteblade, but also A is for Apocalypse. Luckily for me, I had back-up.

Poetry editor Alexandra Seidel helped me out with the nominations this year. And when I say helped me out I mean she was invaluable and pivotal when it came to making our poem-based decisions.

So with no further ado… this year the Niteblade nominations for the Pushcart Prize are:

• The Bitter Gourd’s Fate by Anne Carly Abad (June 2014)
• Godfather by Megan Arkenberg (March 2014)
• Bird Girl by Beth Cato (March 2014)

Congratulations ladies, and good luck!

There’s no point in dancing around the subject, you can see it right there as the title of this post.

Niteblade is closing.

This hasn’t been an easy choice, I promise you. Niteblade has been a big part of my life for over seven years and means the world to me so I struggled to make this decision. Now that I have, however, it feels right. It makes me sad on some levels, but it feels right.

I’m not at the same place I was when I started Niteblade and it’s becoming more and more difficult to find the spoons to give it the time and attention it deserves. I love it, I’m super proud of it, and I want to have it end while that is true. I don’t want to watch it decline or become a burden or a job to me rather than something I enjoy and love. And I don’t want it to have an abrupt closure–something planned and deliberate feels much more its style.

When I first met the man who is now my husband I asked him how old he was and, by way of offering me a hint he said, “It’s a magic number.”

He was 33.

Ever since then I have thought of 33 as a magic number, and that is why I’ve decided to make Niteblade’s 33rd issue her final one.

Our remaining issues look like this:

• December 2014 – Unthemed / FULL
• March 2015 – Dark Fairy Tales / Open
• June 2015 – Unthemed / Open
• September 2015 – Theme TBA / Open

The final theme is going to be somewhat eclectic, Alexa and I are both going to toss some images & ideas out and invite people to use any of them to help frame their contributions. For my part you can expect those themes to be things like bridges, magic numbers and doorways. I’m not sure what Alexa has in mind, but we’ll definitely post a blog / email an announcement once we finalize all that.

We want to go out with a bang, not a whimper, so in addition to having four more complete issues which are sure to be amazing  we’ll be hosting a small series of guest blogs from contributors, staff members and readers. Nothing too masturbatory, but I really want to focus on celebrating Niteblade’s existence rather than mourning its passing.

All great things may have to come to an end, but we’re going to make this particular ending spectacular.

Each contributor to Niteblade is offered a choice of being paid via Paypal or donating their payment to Save the Chimps. Once we’ve reached $150 in donations, my husband and I match that and Niteblade “adopts” a chimpanzee.

Well, we’ve done it again 🙂

With last month’s issue we reached the tipping point for donations and now it’s time to choose which chimpanzee we will adopt.

Please follow this link:

Adopt a Chimp

and read the profiles of the chimps who are available for “adoption”.

Then, choose which chimpanzee you’d like us to adopt and leave your vote as a comment to this post. We’ll be open to votes until mid-November and then we’ll tally them up and adopt whichever chimp gets the most votes.

Last year Rufus won by a landslide and we adopted him. Will he take it again this year? It’s totally up to you 🙂

~*~

On a related note, starting with issue #30 (December’s issue) we will be switching our charitable donations to support Fauna Foundation. They are also a chimpanzee sanctuary, but they are Canadian (like me) and their chimp adoption rates are lower than Save the Chimps new ones ($55 vs $300). This will enable us to make more frequent donations, and to an organization which is just as deserving as Save the Chimps.

Frequent Niteblade contributor Beth Cato‘s novel launched today and in order to help her celebrate we’re pleased to share this guest post —

10 Things to Know About The Clockwork Dagger

#1: It’s not on Earth, but it’s still historical fiction.
The technology, fashion, and grimness are based on post-World War I Europe. This influences everything from the steam cabriolets on the street to the suspicion that the meat at lunch isn’t beef, but horse.

#2: Medicians use healing magic.
My heroine, Octavia Leander, is trained as a healing magi and as a traditional doctor. She uses blessed herbs to draw on the power of the Lady’s Tree.

#3: The Lady is a world tree.
Most people in Octavia’s society regard the Lady as a figure of mythology. They scoff at the idea of a gigantic tree whose roots moor the world and whose omnipresence touches all life on the continent. Octavia fervently believes, but then, her connection to the Lady is quite unusual.

#4: It’s a colorful world.
Caskentia and the surrounding kingdoms and city-states are populated by various skin colors and cultures.

#5: The geography is inspired by eastern Washington.
Familiarity makes for a more realistic world. I lived north of Seattle for several years while my husband was in the Navy, and I miss the area. The topography within the book is similar to that of Mount Vernon on down toward Portland, with additional cameos by Mount Rainier and dry eastern Washington.

#6: There’s a touch of romance.
The chemistry is there, but it’s not the focus of the book. Octavia’s real priority is to stay alive and keep others alive, too.

#7: Old school RPGs play a role, too.
Final Fantasy IV, VI and Secret of Mana were my obsessions as a teenager and their influence has never left me. The Lady is directly inspired by Secret of Mana. Old school gamers will recognize tiny homages hidden within the book.

#8: The Hindenburg helped me out.
I wanted to create a realistic airship for the action in The Clockwork Dagger. The Hindenburg is both tragic and infamous, and there’s extensive resource material to draw from. My airship the Argus uses the Hindenburg’s floor plan cut in half, but many of the room details are almost exact. One significant modification: the boost of aether magic to keep it afloat.

#9: Gremlins FTW.
When I created my own sort of gremlins, I had no idea that the ugly-cute green-skinned critters would become one of the main appeals of the book.

#10: Agatha Christie contributed to the plot.
My mom raised me on Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries. My initial idea for The Clockwork Dagger was “Murder on the Orient Express, on an airship.” Everything else built from there.

The Clockwork Dagger is available today at all the usual suspects:

~ Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Powell’s ~ Books-A-Million ~

About the Author:

Beth Cato hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes and bakes cookies in a lair west of Phoenix, Arizona. She shares the household with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-obsessed son, and a cat the size of a canned ham.

Beth’s short fiction can be found in Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and many other magazines. The Clockwork Dagger is her first novel. The sequel, The Clockwork Crown, will be released in 2015.

Follow her at www.BethCato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato.

I am incredibly proud to announce the release of the September 2014 issue of Niteblade — Porcelain Doll.

This issue (which is #29 for those of you keeping track at home), contains:

St. Winifred Medical Center, Abandoned by Joshua Gage
Shelba’s Brood by M.E. Garber
The Gate of Horn by Megan Arkenberg
Dancing with the Departed by Anna Zumbro
Porcelain Doll by J.A. Grier
There She Stands by Nathaniel W. Phillips
Awakened by Sandi Leibowitz
Lena’s Confession by Kristi Brooks
Valediction for the Dungeon Master by Mark Jones
The Crew by Doug Blakeslee

It’s a great selection. It’s interesting to watch how themes emerge from the slush pile and I feel like this issue has strong flavours of hauntings and love… and sometimes the both together.

You can preview all the stories and poems at our website — Niteblade #29: Porcelain Doll and if that intrigues you, pick up a downloadable copy at the Niteblade Store (which means we don’t have to pay anyone commissions) or, if you prefer, at the following third party websites:

Porcelain Doll at Smashwords
Porcelain Doll at Amazon
Porcelain Doll at Kobo

Niteblade Magazine is looking for a couple new slush readers. If you’re interested here are a few things you should know:

• This is a volunteer position. You will be paid in gratitude and an electronic copy of each issue you read for but sadly, not money
• Our slush readers read and vote (yes, no or maybe) on all the stories which are submitted to us via the Submittable system
• The work load isn’t huge, we ask you to read 5 to 7 stories a week
• While you are working as a slush reader for Niteblade you will not be allowed to submit to us
• You will need to be familiar with Niteblade Magazine and the kind of stories we publish

If you’re interested in getting a sneak peek behind the curtain here at Niteblade, the chance to help us out and read great fiction before it’s published, please email rhonda@niteblade.com. In that email please tell me a little bit about yourself and also about your favourite story Niteblade has published in the past year.

Thank you.

Rufus
©2010 Save the Chimps
www.savethechimps.org

This is Rufus. Due to the generosity of many of Niteblade’s authors and poets, we were able to “adopt” Rufus from Save the Chimps last month. As described in this Miscellanea blog post, contributors are given a choice of being paid via paypal or of donating their payment to Save the Chimps. I had hoped that maybe we would be able to adopt a chimp every 18 months or so, but I was blown away by the number of people donating their payment. We reached the $75 goal quite some time ago and then had a bit of a vote to decide which chimp we’d adopt. Rufus won by a landslide.

You can learn more about Rufus (and see more photos of him) right here — All About Rufus.

The reason I’m just blogging about our adoption of Rufus now is that I must have made a mistake when I filled out the paperwork to adopt him. The original certificate (which exists solely for bragging rights) listed me, personally, as the person who adopted Rufus (though I’d said in the papers that it was on behalf of Niteblade Magazine). I emailed Save the Chimps to see if they could provide me with a certificate that more accurately reflected reality but so far I haven’t heard back (no doubt since they are busy helping chimps). So what you see above is a copy of the certificate which I edited to give credit where it belonged.

Thank you to everyone who donated their payment to support Save the Chimps, and to everyone who voted to help us decide which chimp to adopt! It’s a small thing we’ve done, but because of you, Niteblade is changing lives and helping to make the world a better place, and how awesome is that?

Back in May, Alexa Seidel agreed be a poetry editor for Niteblade. She and I have worked together on the June and September issues and it’s been painless and fun. Come 2012, however, Alexa is going to take over the poetry editor position. We wanted to do something to celebrate the transition, to look back at some of the awesome poems we’ve included in Niteblade, and include some brand new content too. With that in mind, we decided to do a special edition of Niteblade in December (just in time for Christmas! /sales pitch).

The December issue, tentatively entitled “Looking Back, Going Forward” will only include poetry. Some of those poems will be reprints from back issues of Niteblade, some will be brand spanking new. What’s more, in addition to offering a .pdf version we will also have a limited number of print copies available for sale.

Intriqued? Click here to learn how to submit to the special poetry edition, and keep an eye on this blog for more details as they become available.

Exciting news for Niteblade authors who love podcasts. Jason Warden of ShadowCast Audio Anthology has generously offered to produce one Niteblade story a month as a podcast and share it with his audience. Beginning in March I will have the difficult task of choosing one story from a current, or archived Niteblade issue to be recorded as a podcast and shared with the ShadowCast Audio audience.

Niteblade writers get greater exposure for thier work. Win.

ShadowCast Audio gets high quality fantasy and horror stories to publish. Win.

Niteblade and ShadowCast audiences can enjoy an increased awareness of one another. Win.

It’s pretty much win all around 🙂

What’s more is that Niteblade is not the only magazine that will be providing ShadowCast with fantastic stories to record. House of Horror and SNM Magazine will also be teaming up with ShadowCast in this endevour.

To quote Jason:

On 02/18/11 Steven Marshall from SNM Horror Magazine gives us their Story of the Month from the January Jambalaya 2011 Issue 2.

On 03/04/11 S.E. Cox from House of Horror Magazine will give us their top selection from the new issue.

On 03/18/11 Rhonda Parrish from NiteBlade Magazine treats us with the best of an upcoming issue.

I’m really looking forward to this project and I hope you’ll take advantage of it as well by subscribing to Shadowcast Audio Anthology today on iTunes. I know I have.

Important notes for Niteblade authors:

• Participation in this project is strictly voluntary. If I choose one of your pieces to be used for this project I will contact you directly in order to get your permission. You are welcome to say ‘No, thank you’.
• Some amazing stories just aren’t appropriate to translate to audio format because of their format or length. I will not be choosing based solely on a ‘Best of…’ but also for what will work best as an audio podcast