CY: Arley, the Locus Awards Weekend just happened! That’s one I haven’t been to yet. From pictures I’ve seen of past events I gather it’s generally pretty small and intimate in person. This year they had a virtual component as well. How did this year go?
AS: I couldn’t make it this year but you’re right, they’re usually about 130 people or so. That’s one of the things I like about them! At smaller events, it’s easier to have quality hang outs with folks. Everyone had a great time! A couple of minor hiccups, of course. I think 60 people attended in-person. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from the community. It was a tremendous amount of work – the two people who put the most into it (Liza Trombi and Francesca Myman) probably worked 80 or 90 hours that week.
CY: I think we were both pretty gobsmacked to be finalists again this year. One of the many things that I’ve really appreciated about you since we started this journey together is your vigilance in keeping up with the honors and nominations that our writers receive. There have been a LOT, across multiple categories, including non-fiction and poetry! It is always a joy to be a small part of a writer’s career, whether they’re a new author selling us their first story, or a seasoned, multiply-award-nominated pro.
AS: Absolutely. I was genuinely surprised that we were finalists again, because it’s by open vote, and there are so many folks doing awesome things. I’m grateful that readers have loved a lot of the work we’ve published. I’m so glad that many of our writers have been recognized, from various awards to awesome reviews to inclusion in best-of anthologies.
CY: You’ve worked at Locus for . . . how many years now? It seems like forever. For those who don’t know, Locus has effectively been the trade journal for the SFF field for decades. Long before I’d ever submitted a story–or even finished writing one, probably!–I would buy issues at Borders and get to feel like I had insider access to the world of SFF publishing. It’s been an invaluable resource for pros at every level and in every role in the field. Working there I imagine you get to learn about upcoming good news well before the rest of us. What’s it like having to keep those secrets, when you just want to squee to the world and congratulate people, knowing how much readers loved their story?
AS: I started there in 2014, right after the Odyssey Workshop! It’s been valuable for learning about and understanding the field, including its history and communities. I do get to hold a lot of secrets! It’s pretty fun! I occasionally agonize at not being able to tell a friend something, but it’s so cool when our community recognizes the wonderful things that creative folks accomplish, and I don’t want to mess that up. Has working as an Adamant Press publisher and a Tordotcom acquisitions editor changed your perspectives on the industry, since back when you were first starting out?
CY: Seeing how the sausage gets made is bound to change a person’s perspective. There are real challenges involved in bringing stories into the world, and many of them are beyond our control. Fantasy Magazine and its sibling publications are so lucky to have so many amazing people volunteering their time to make these stories available to our readers–including our friends at Skyboat Media, who produce our monthly podcast for no reason other than that they love genre fiction just as much as we do. The most important thing I’ve learned, having worn multiple hats on both sides of the submission portal and the checkout line, is that this thing we’re creating would be diminished without the contribution of every person involved in the process. Between the ebook, website, and podcast, a dozen people have touched each story before it reaches its ultimate destination–the mind and imagination of the reader.
• • • •
In this month’s issue of Fantasy Magazine we bring you short fiction by Simo Srinivas (“Bozpo Witch-Bane”) and Margaret Jordan (“Blue”); flash fiction by Kimberly Terasaki (“The World is Ending Tomorrow”) and Catherine Yu (“The Dancer”); poetry by H.B. Asari (“After the Pyre”) and Julia August (“The End of Little Dreams”); and an interview with this year’s finalists for the Nebula Award for Short Fiction.
Publisher’s Note: Kindle Periodicals is Closing, and We Need Your Support More Than Ever.
Many of you have likely already heard about the new existential threat to Fantasy Magazine and all of the other digital magazines in the SF/F/H field: the impending closure, in September, of Amazon’s Kindle Periodicals program. They will be transitioning some magazines into Kindle Unlimited, and so in some respects things may continue as normal if you subscribe via Kindle Periodicals—but this shift will cut severely into the finances of any magazine currently using the service; Fantasy, for instance, will see our largest source of funding cut it in half. (For additional information about this seismic shift, you can see Neil Clarke’s deep dive into the details at neil-clarke.com/amazon-kindle-subscriptions.)
What We Can Do About This
The best thing you can do if you are a Kindle Periodicals subscriber is to migrate your subscription over to one of our other subscription options. Currently, we have the following options available:
- Subscribe direct via our website: We have options for 6 month, 12 month, 24 month, and Lifetime subscriptions. We’re in the process of also bringing back the pay-as-you-go monthly subscriptions (i.e., the way Kindle Periodicals currently works) as well. Your issues can be delivered to your Kindle or Kindle app of choice the same way they are via Kindle Periodicals, though they’d appear on your device as regular eBooks rather than the special “periodical” format Kindle Periodicals forced us to use.
- Subscribe via Weightless Books: Weightless Books’s subscriptions work exactly like our Direct subscriptions, though they only have 6 and 12 month options.
- Become a Patreon patron: If you just want to support Fantasy and the other Adamant Press magazines (without getting ebooks in return), you can become one of our Patrons at Patreon. You’d be able to choose any amount that you’d like to pledge to support us, either monthly or annually.
Visit Fantasymagazine.com/support for more info about all of the above.
Why We Need Your Support
There are no big companies supporting or funding Adamant Press’s magazines—and Adamant itself is kind of a two-person show—so the magazines really rely on reader support. Because of that, it’s vital for us to keep as many Kindle Periodicals subscribers—which is the vast majority of our subscribers are—as possible during this upheaval. So, please—if you care about the continuation of Fantasy and any other genre magazines you subscribe to, please take this to heart and help us make this transition.
Thank You for Being a Subscriber
Thanks so much for your generous support over the months or years you’ve been a subscriber or reader. Together, we can ensure that Fantasy will continue coming to you every month for many years to come.