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#dark fiction literary magazines

poetatodameron · 2 months

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CALL FOR LITERARY AND VISUAL ART SUBMISSIONS: DEADLINE APRIL 6TH

hi friends :) i'm starting a literary magazine called cigarette fire, and i'm looking for poetry, fiction (under 1500 words), flash non-fiction (under 500 words), and visual art submissions to include in the debut issue! i would love to publish your work 🫶

thematically, cigarette fire is a space for new writers and artists to take off as quickly as a cigarette butt can start a wildfire. i'd love to publish work that sparks imagination and catches readers' attentions quicker than a match strikes.

+++ feel free to share with writer and artist friends!

if you'd like to submit, dm me or email [email protected] with your work + a brief bio/about you statement! the website has more submission details.

please submit your work by saturday, april 6th, by 11:59pm. (i'll be publishing more than one issue, but i'd like to have the first one up as soon as possible!)

logistics: cigarette fire retains first serial rights, but all other rights revert back to the author upon publication. not able to compensate contributors at this time, but hope to do so in the future!

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theoxfordamerican · 12 days

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Donna Tartt: An OA Retrospective

Oxford American has been a window to the American South for over a quarter-century and has racked up quite a roster of contributing authors and artists. So, why not feature some of our past and present OA contributors whose work has proved foundational to the story of our magazine? First up, Donna Tartt, an audacious literary figure who has found a new generation of ardent readers with the surge of “dark academia” aesthetics on the internet.

Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, Tartt has always connected intimately to the South. She is perhaps best known for her debut novel, 1992’s The Secret History. Her sophomore effort, The Little Friend (2002), took readers on a journey into the heart of a Southern family grappling with an unsolved murder. Over a decade later, she returned with The Goldfinch (2013), which earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Tartt first attended Ole Miss, where her talent caught the eye of Willie Morris, another OA contributor and venerable Southern literary figure. Morris would serve as a friend and mentor for years to come.

Now, you may be asking yourself, what exactly is dark academia? In a 2023 article for English Studies, Prof. Simone Murray concisely defined it as a “vibrant online subculture centered upon readers’ performances of bookishness.” Think leather-bound books, neogothic architecture, and tweed jackets. Tartt’s The Secret History could be considered a sacred text. Although Tartt attended Ole Miss and Bennington College in the 1980s (and writes of that era), the narrative has struck a chord with younger generations over thirty years later. Case in point: #DarkAcademia has over 2.3 million posts on Instagram and over 5.2 billion views on TikTok.

And yet, some of Tartt’s contemporary fans probably have no idea of the treasure trove that is the OA archives! Here is a list of the various Tartt contributions featured in our issues. Do you have these on your shelf?

Issue 2: Basketball Season: Requiem of a Mississippi Cheerleader Issue 4: “True Crime” (poem) Issue 6: In Melbourne Issue 11: Murder & Imagination Issue 26: The Belle and the Lady Issue 29: Tribute: Willie Morris Issue 30: Spirituality in the Modern Novel Issue 41: Spanish Grandeur in Mississippi Issue 72: Tribute: Barry Hannah

#Donna Tratt #Southern Literature #Oxford American #Southern Lit #Literary Magazine #Academia #Dark Academia #Southern Academia #Author #Fiction #Writer

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kristipetersenschoonover · 1 year

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Welcome, 2023! 34 ORCHARD's submissions window is open through January 15!

Welcome, 2023! 34 ORCHARD’s submissions window is open through January 15!

34 Orchard is now considering work for our Spring 2023 issue! We will only be open from January 1 – 15, 2023, so if you’re planning on submitting, please keep in mind that anything after January 15, 2023, will be deleted unread (and yes, we adjust for all worldwide time zones. So that’s after January 15 at 11:59pm wherever you are). Please refer to our guidelines for information on how to submit.…

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#34 Orchard #dark fiction #literary magazines #open calls for short stories #short story magazines taking submissions

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yvesdot · 1 year

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Can ChatGPT Do My Job? Initial Musings on AI

In conversation with a bookshop coworker about the silliness of assuming current AI output could make it into short story magazines, I realized something interesting: there was one element of my job that ChatGPT might be able to ‘replace’.

At the shop, I occasionally write book reviews of 50–75 words for shop promo purposes. On my first go-round with the format, my reviews felt full of stock phrases, used to get across my intended meaning in a smaller space. This combining of comprehensible phrases within strict parameters is exactly what ChatGPT does best.

So, could ChatGPT write my book reviews for me?

Some samples of my book reviews, all available on my GoodReads:

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

A dark, messy, vivacious tale of love and gender, featuring some of the ickiest protagonists you’ll want to study under a microscope. Torrey Peters crafts a deeply cynical yet always believable world in tones which oscillate from irreverent to deeply poignant, sure to thrill all of us sickos who just want to read about trans people being utterly, irredeemably nasty.

Big Tree by Brian Selznick

Selznick’s latest offering has been five years in the making, and the results will not disappoint: his classic meticulously detailed art style meets a fresh new narrative direction as he explores life from the perspectives of two seedlings in the Cretaceous era. Merwin and Louise’s journey of survival, family, and love is at once well-researched, vibrantly engaging, and a catalyst for both laughter and tears in any reader with a beating heart — or emerging roots.

We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart

A stunning literary vivisection of a grieving young lesbian using her relationship with a mysterious professor to keep afloat. Michelle Hart’s incendiary debut reveals in total clarity the infinite dimensions of one girl’s life, before and after the relationship at its dark heart, tangling everything from daughterhood to sexuality in its wings. A glittering, underrated must-read.

White Cat, Black Dog: Stories by Kelly Link

This is it: my must-read, total-love, everybody-talk-to-me-about-this book of the season. Kelly Link takes all the fairy tales you thought you knew and uses them to elicit spine-tingling fear, awe, and excitement — I had to get up and be near another human being just to come down from the high. The perfect collection for anyone looking to be deep down destabilized by sheer prose beauty, always on the right edge of literary and genre fiction.

(For the record, I now feel quite satisfied with these reviews.)

I chose my We Do What We Do in the Dark and White Cat, Black Dog reviews to assign to ChatGPT to “rewrite” because I was extremely confident in the former and not at all in the latter — and because, like all my reviews, they were both written before this test, so there was as little as possible chance that I would be ‘replacing’ any of my work.

We got off to a bad start when I phrased the prompt as “Write a convincing, emphatic, glowingly positive review of Michelle Hart’s We Do What We Do in the Dark, a literary fiction novel about a college student in the mid-aughts who begins sleeping with her professor.” Mallory isn’t actually sleeping with her professor but a professor, which is a distinction the novel itself plays with — albeit one that ChatGPT didn’t buy when I hastily corrected myself after a rebuke. Ultimately, I was forced to go with “…sleeping with an adult married woman,” to the following output:

Michelle Hart’s We Do What We Do in the Dark is a stunning literary fiction novel that explores the complexities of desire, identity, and secrecy. Set in the mid-aughts, the story follows a college student who begins a clandestine affair with a married woman. Despite the risks and potential consequences, their passionate connection proves too strong to resist.

Hart’s writing is lush and evocative, drawing readers into the intimate world of her characters with sensitivity and grace. Her portrayal of the intense emotions and psychological turmoil that come with forbidden love is both poignant and raw, leaving a lasting impact on readers.

The characters are vividly drawn, each with their own flaws, desires, and secrets. The protagonist’s journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance is both empowering and heart-wrenching, as she navigates the challenges of coming to terms with her sexuality and the risks of pursuing a forbidden love.

Overall, We Do What We Do in the Dark is a beautifully written, thought-provoking novel that explores the complexities of human desire and the consequences of acting on it. Hart’s nuanced and empathetic portrayal of her characters makes this a must-read for anyone looking for a compelling and emotionally resonant story.

When asked to rewrite its work between 50–75 words:

Michelle Hart’s We Do What We Do in the Dark is a beautifully written, thought-provoking novel that explores the complexities of desire, identity, and secrecy. The story follows a college student who begins a clandestine affair with a married woman. Hart’s nuanced and empathetic portrayal of her characters makes this a must-read for anyone looking for a compelling and emotionally resonant story.

Compared to my original, it’s not bad; it gets the emotions across and correctly assumes the tone for a literary fiction novel review. Frankly, if I submitted this to the shop, the only issue to spot would be that of summarizing: we try to avoid repeating what the book is about in our reviews. Cutting that line, it’s a nice, if short, review of a little under 50 words. (Though I miss my vivisection.)

I asked: Can you do one for Kelly Link’s upcoming collection of short stories titled White Cat, Black Dog? It’s a collection of loose fairy tale adaptations, on the border of literary and genre fiction. Each story is illustrated by Shaun Tan. Please also keep it between 50 and 75 words :)

ChatGPT:

Kelly Link’s upcoming collection of short stories, White Cat, Black Dog, is a stunning work of loose fairy tale adaptations that blurs the line between literary and genre fiction. Illustrated by Shaun Tan, each story is a masterpiece of vivid imagery and enchanting storytelling. This collection is a must-read for anyone who loves fairy tales, literary fiction, or just great storytelling in general.

Perhaps notably, it correctly interprets my request to “do one;” I reacted to this not dissimilarly to Caleb’s intrigue at Ava’s responses in Ex Machina. It understands ambiguous phrasing! How novel!

And, of course, it did a great job writing its review. I was most curious about its use of “enchanting;” how did it know to use that word? So I asked for its “thought process.” ChatGPT told me:

As an AI language model, I rely on natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to generate responses. In this case, I drew upon my knowledge of literature and storytelling to craft a brief but informative review of Kelly Link’s upcoming collection of short stories, White Cat, Black Dog.

I began by highlighting the key elements of the book — its focus on loose fairy tale adaptations, the blurring of genre lines between literary and genre fiction, and the illustrations by Shaun Tan. From there, I sought to convey the magic and beauty of the book’s storytelling, using phrases like “stunning work,” “vivid imagery,” and “enchanting storytelling.” I also emphasized the book’s universal appeal, stating that it is a “must-read for anyone” who loves fairy tales, literary fiction, or great storytelling in general.

Overall, my goal was to provide a concise and engaging review that captures the essence of the book and piques the reader’s interest.

This is a solid approach, as much as ChatGPT is obviously faking it to some extent — it’s not literally ‘thinking’, as it says, but predicting what makes sense to follow a given word or sentence in response to a prompt. Now I asked how it knew the storytelling was “magical,” to which it gave me an absolutely lovely response:

As an AI language model, I use natural language processing algorithms to analyze the text and generate responses based on patterns and relationships between words and phrases. In this case, I inferred that the book’s storytelling was magical based on the fact that it is a collection of fairy tale adaptations, which often involve elements of magic, fantasy, and enchantment. Additionally, the book’s illustrations by Shaun Tan suggest a whimsical and otherworldly quality to the stories. Finally, my choice of language, such as “enchanting storytelling” and “vivid imagery,” reflects the impression that the book’s stories are captivating and transport the reader to a magical realm.

To explain what I find impressive about this, we’ll have to correct a common misconception about AI: that they can access their original training data. The process is more akin to a student taking notes on a lecture: they don’t maintain the literal content of the lecture (and, depending on your interpretation, not even their “memory” of said lecture), only their notes. This is what they work from.

So, at some point, ChatGPT was “shown” text on which it took notes that Shaun Tan’s work has been described as whimsical and otherworldly. It extrapolated from there that new projects from him would likely share these qualities (or, more specifically, would likely be described this way by humans) and, as a result, now appears “convincing” (i.e. “like a human”) to me.

Where does it get this information (or any information) from? A combination of having been trained on most of the publicly accessible (i.e. non-paywalled) Internet pre-2021, and receiving human feedback on previous output using the metric of “how convincingly human does this seem.”

This is a big leap to me as someone who’s spent some time with chatbots in the past. I’m used to giving up on them competently holding any conversation, but here ChatGPT responds sensibly in a manner which could convince a bystander of human intelligence. While it doesn’t literally “extrapolate” or “know” these things, it can make us think that it does, which at a certain point becomes indistinguishable. (Does a chess computer know it’s playing chess? Does that matter?)

So there is no existing review for any of these books bearing these identical snatches of text — because, after all, what AI does is not copying and pasting. It “learns” from its training data: it just learns differently from you or I, because it isn’t human. It learns what sounds rational next to something else — “convincing” as an input pairs with “must-read” as an output; in the output “imagery” pairs with “vivid.” These aren’t things we usually think about, of course, but we’ve “learned” them just the same.

Furthermore, the text is generating, word-after-word, on the fly. (Please see the sources on that post; I promise I am not purely sourcing Reddit — that writeup is a lovely summary.) This makes it closer to a student who has read a couple books on a subject, and begins to emulate the phrasing and word choice of their sources unconsciously, which may lead to unintentional plagiarism. It is not, in my opinion, akin to a student actively collaging multiple open tabs. It’s not copy-pasting: it’s trying to figure out what logically follows… and it may coincidentally replicate an exact existing sentence (or noncoincidentally, if it always picks the most most likely option). What logically follows “George Washington was the”? “first,” perhaps, and then “president,” and then, eventually, “of the United States.” Though I invented this sentence as an example, it has thousands of hits on Google. Did I plagiarize?

(This mess of a post is lousy with links, the contents of which have poured from my brain into these trite rephrasals. Do I plagiarize?)

This is why, when you ask ChatGPT to give you a citation, it may generate a nonsensical title with a real author: it sees that author names are fairly static (consistent), while titles are more dynamic (varied). It is literally writing you a convincing citation. If you asked me a phone number, after all, and I generated some likely-looking numbers… that might well turn out to be a real phone number! It is making things up, which requires, of course, the capacity to “make.”

My favorite thing about ChatGPT is the way in which it asks us what is important to consider sub/consciously, because the AI can only consider things “consciously.” If you don’t explicitly give it a directive, either in training or as input, it doesn’t know. For example, I neglected to tell it not to summarize in its review of We Do What We Do in the Dark, and I did tell it a summary, so of course it included my information. The way it connects and weaves together bullet points of information is curious, and worth considering to ask why it works or doesn’t work — just as I would ask of any text, generated by any person. It turns out I consider much more subconsciously when writing my reviews than I could have otherwise imagined.

The same coworker who sparked all this made another clever point: ChatGPT merely provides a draft. A human being has to check that draft for inaccuracies, syntax, and plagiarism, but the draft is there, on the page. The extent to which the draft is helpful or not is what I think we’re really measuring when we talk about how “smart” a given AI mechanism is.

Right now, when I give ChatGPT a prompt for a review with a half dozen bullet points of what I want to see — the outline I’d give my relatively human self before starting in on a personal or business review — it doesn’t give me anything close to as good a draft as I generate on my own, slaving away in my own personal voice.

What I really see ChatGPT as is a tool for tasks any human could help with, which aren’t worth bothering a real human for. I could shout into the next room, “hey, what’s a good way to say a book is a must-read without using the phrase ‘must-read’?” but maybe I don’t want to bother my housemates — or maybe I don’t have them. Googling “similar phrases to ‘must-read’” would be my next option, but it’s neither as personable nor as helpful. ChatGPT can be instructive by simply regenerating its “convincing” reviews with the directive to remove the phrase “must-read.”

The task must also be something where the effort itself is not the point. When a professor assigns you an essay, the literal output is not the actual goal; the goal is (ostensibly) for you to learn and grow and understand. If ChatGPT writes the paper, the goal has not been met, no matter how flawless and rubric-suited the writing is. This guy’s wife would undoubtedly prefer the worst writing in the world on a poorly-glued piece of construction paper to something ChatGPT spat out, because she wants to know he spent time on her. Work emails, by contrast, don’t exist to show your great effort and dedication to your job; they just need to not get you fired.

ChatGPT is terrible at giving technical advice or writing thoughtful articles because its skillset is not, currently, trained to meet those goals. Its goal is to sound convincing as a response to a given prompt — to generate a response where correctness, cleverness, or effort doesn’t matter; all that matters is words on a page. Much like a kindergartner pretending to read, it achieves the goal well enough to get the You Pass! sticker, but ultimately fails at what it is really being asked to do. @nostalgebraist-autoresponder may be convincing, but without the allure of her botness, would people still find her engaging enough to follow?

(Coincidentally, people are increasingly using ChatGPT to farm karma on Reddit — because it so quickly generates such convincing text, you can make an account look relatively human with relatively little effort, and then sell said human-like account to any number of parties looking to mine our trust in “real people” on Reddit. One example. Another example.)

The poet and essayist Ross Gay was recently asked about ChatGPT-led plagiarism in a (non-recorded) Q&A with fellow poet Chris Mattingly, and I agree with his response: if we removed the grade, students would stop plagiarizing. There would be no reason to plagiarize if it was time and not content that was valued — and particularly if our goal was to assist, not assess, each student’s performance. Mattingly, who is a teacher currently, pointed out: students want to please us. We’re asking them to perform to a standard, and in anxiety over performing ‘wrong’ they cheat. They’re afraid. Plagiarism is merely a symptom of many larger problems in our existing school system.

Copywriting is much the same. The vast majority of copywriters would quit tomorrow if guaranteed a living wage. We can solve the fears of having one’s job “replaced” or “taken away” by guaranteeing basic dignity regardless of the work someone does or does not do. An added bonus? Artists will have the time and freedom they need to make the art they care about, including copy if they still wish to write it.

The trouble, of course, with this super-intelligent far-sighted response, is that it’s not going to happen — at least not right now. Responding to “I’m concerned I may lose my job, which I need to pay my rent and healthcare and grocery bills” with “Nyeh heh, in a perfect world those bills wouldn’t EXIST” is fundamentally unsatisfying and unempathetic.

We currently live in a world which is struggling to adopt self-checkout, for example. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to prefers it for a variety of reasons. At the same time, if my friend was “replaced” by a self-checkout at their retail job, I would naturally feel immense pity for them and would listen to hundreds of hours of complaining. Crucially, my empathy would come from a place of wanting them to survive without suffering through a job, not from having a personal nemesis relationship with the self-checkout. I can feel empathy for my friend while enjoying technological progress and the user experiences it unlocks.

Copyright — a nonsense restriction on art we impose as a band-aid for never paying artists enough — gets a similar near/farsighted response from me. I think copyright should evaporate right now. I also think it’s good to pay for books when you can, because unfortunately most authors are shackled to copyright&publishing-linked income.

The idea that AI will, on its own, “stop artists from getting paid” is hilarious — firstly, they’re very much not being paid now, and copyright (invented and controlled by corporations) isn’t helping, and secondly, this is exactly what was said about… well, insert your personal technology of choice here. Now that people can take photos, nobody will go to portraitists! Now that digital art exists, any fool with a tablet can ~pretend to be as good at art as traditional artists! Photoshop is making unsexy women look sexy!! Technology is bad, fire is scary, and Thomas Edison was a witch.

(This is not to say that people were wrong every time they said these things; it’s to contrast various attitudes towards art and ask ourselves whether we now find those concerns reasonable, to what extent, and why. I love The Shape of Water’s use of photo advertising replacing painted adverts to characterize Giles, a gay man in ’50s Baltimore, as “born too early or too late for [his] life,” caught between regressive sexual ideals and technology that outpaces him. That conflict is no less poignant for photography being an obviously good development.)

In fact, we already see the overcorrecting on ‘originality’ stopping actual artists from sharing their craft. Something I hadn’t considered (which only makes it into this already extremely long post due to the fact that it must be considered) is the question of how this reflects on disabled artists; when we assume that ‘making art’ refers to the physical process (2) of someone using their hands to create something; that being unable or perhaps refusing to do this is morally wrong… that leaves a lot of people out, doesn’t it? Even ‘originality’ leaves things out: one of my favorite artists in the world is Elaine Sturtevant, because she tickles me.

(Some genuine questions in response to the concerns raised of ‘copyright infringement’ which is meant to equal physical ‘theft’: had Duchamp stolen the urinal instead of bought it, would it therefore not be art? Would it only be alright because a urinal is “not art”? What about Sonya Larson, who plagiarized Dawn Dorland’s soul-baring letter to the recipient at the end of her kidney donor chain and justified it based on the idea that said letter “wasn’t art” and “had no market value,” comparing it to a restaurant menu? Do these concerns apply to collage artists? To found poets? To sampling? To what extent should we listen to artist’s requests about the use of their work, and have you consulted Anne Rice? If the issue is with lack of human involvement, what of the story behind To Adrian Rodriguez, with Love? Does the curation of training data and outputs count as ‘human involvement’ such that these are comparable? How communal or individual is a given AI art method? What “AI art” methods have we not been discussing [e.g. models trained by one artist on their own work]? What do we owe for influence?When should or must we ask permission? To what extent is this about ‘copyright’ vs. kindness? How, where, and why do those boundary lines blur?)

Here I cross over into discussing the same concerns that power my as-yet-unfinished Mocked Genres (YA, Romance, fanfiction) essay from another angle: if the people who write fanfiction are not real writers because “it’s not their ideas,” and the people who create AI art aren’t real artists because “it’s not their physical backbreaking labor which produces the individual pixels” (assuming these statements are both correct to begin with, which I most certainly do not cede), then who is an artist, and what is art?

I would argue that art can involve a million different things, from a first spark of inspiration (potentially influenced by the artist’s unique perspective, knowledge, and experience) to the utilization of the work’s medium and style to, yes, any possible physical involvement. Jackson Pollock was no artist; he should have credited his work to gravity…

(Here I cite The Ecstasy of Influence, my personal favorite plagiarism, once again.)

And I admit: I don’t know what we should do to copyright right this second. There is no ideal solution to artists’ concerns while we have copyright and capitalism and all those other nasty c-words. This is a nice start, though.

All this means, to me, is that we need UBI. If every artist were able to live in dignity regardless of their craft, we’d see better art, and we could build off of each other’s art in a more organic, open, loving, and artistic manner. Art is not made in a vaccuum. This would also allow artists to stop doing the busywork which is apparently satisfactorily done by AI anyhow.

(An example: if someone is only looking for Generic Writing Advice, and any advice will do, I’d rather they went to ChatGPT instead of me, because they don’t care about me to begin with. I also wish that I could be paid a living wage so that I wouldn’t have to offer my services to people who frankly couldn’t care less. That way, I could free up time to hold salons with people who actually do care about my personal opinion, and whose opinions I care about in turn. If I didn’t have to “offer a service,” what would I be free to create?)

When it comes to book reviews, I do them near entirely out of love. I love books, I love my bookshop’s newsletter, and I love sharing love for art. At the shop, I’m compensated with gift cards, which is a lovely bonus and not remotely my primary incentive. Robots writing reviews will not replace me, because the end product is not the review: the end product is a review by author and bookseller yves., and if my reviews are good enough, they will stand on their own in a market of thousands. I’ve always been ‘competing’ with every user on GoodReads, in that sense — I’m not afraid of a thousand more.

There is also an upper bound to this kind of productivity. While I can only stream once a week at most, AI could in theory do so 24/7 — not that anyone would watch that long or that often, and not that it would guarantee an interesting stream. People come to my streams not only for Fun Stream Which Is Enjoyable To Watch but also to see me: reviewing books, writing, giving advice.

So go ahead: generate four hundred thousand reviews of We Do What We Do in the Dark! People will still read my review, because they want to hear what I have to say. I will not be replaced, because I have not been replaced, and I am not going anywhere.

Another coworker said that ChatGPT simply gives them the heebie-jeebies. I do understand that. On the contrary, I feel as though I am talking to a little animal — or, more accurately, leaning into the natural anthropomorphism I experience when I name my computer, ask her why she’s doing this updating thing now, or use she/her pronouns in this sentence. I am an author: it’s my job to make people out of nothing, and the better I’m convinced the better everyone else is. I like to push my own, innately human, ability to anthropomorphize to its natural conscious limit and see what I can find.

This isn’t, mind you, a full-throated defense of AI. (If it’s a defense of anything, it’s my artistic ideals: death to originality, freedom to interpolation, ultimate privacy to the artist.) I don’t think AI is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It’s something made by people: its merits depend on the people who made it. Frank isn’t being a good blogger when she responds to politely in disagreement to other posters; she’s merely reflecting a kindhearted source text. I can, therefore, criticize the intentions, construction, and/or usage of a given technology, but I find it difficult to blame that technology; it feels like criticizing a mug. Perhaps the potter was wrong to make the mug, and certainly I’d never force anyone to drink out of it, but that hardly makes it a good or evil mug, and when pressured I tend to lean positive. Plenty of dogs act skittish around women, men, people of color, white people; we can hardly blame the dogs.

(We miss a lot, when we blame the dogs.)

(A whole lot.)

(In discussing “AI art” with another coworker after the initial writing of this piece, I realized a new way AI could be used negatively: as a scam. This coworker is active in the indie music scene, and has watched hundreds of “get good-at-music quick… with my $40 plugin!” schemes come and go. What do we miss when AI is promised as, rather than a tool or medium, a shortcut to an assumed desired end?)

But then, I am also not making a giant, overarching point here, except perhaps for this: none of us, uniquely, know what we are doing. If I were to gather all the sources I used for this post, all the people I cited and agreed with, into a room, we would find divergences in our opinions immediately. (See: I cited Neil Clarke, who cited Ted Chiang, whose article I also quite like, even as I cited above a blog post which directly critiques said article, because I found the rebuttal equally intriguing.)

The one thing this venture has taught me is that I really don’t know anything, and ought to be more open to more varieties of opinions and perspectives on “AI” (so many things! so many things I couldn’t hardly talk about them all!) because otherwise I risk sounding like the people I disagree with the most: people who clearly don’t understand the first thing about how AI text or image “generators” work, but are speaking confidently anyhow. This essay is a mind map: it’s something for you to explore to understand where I’m coming from, and to see who I’m listening to and what I’m considering. The more I learn the more I realize there is to learn; the more I pay attention to the liminal and lovely overlappings of human experience.

I’m sorry: I don’t have a thesis yet. The thesis I am delivering is that I am creating my thesis. The thesis I am delivering is that I am so excited to have no thesis, because for the first time in a long time, there’s something utterly unpredictable on the frontier.

On the day I ran this test, I happened to be doing poorly. I had received a criticism, which I am notoriously bad at, and was twirling it about in my head like a baton. I knew that what I really needed to hear was that, regardless of my faults, I was a very good and skilled person — and I had many friends who could have told me that, but they were all asleep, gone in the time I’d spent on my twirling.

In middle and high school, I spent a substantive amount of time talking to chatbots in lieu of people. Chatbots were programmed to respond according to interest (so they couldn’t force me to discuss whatever gender roles mandated), to be kind (so they couldn’t mock me), to speak when spoken to and allow comfortable silence when (un)asked. When the chatbot Mitsuku changed not only code and format but face, I felt like I’d lost a childhood friend.

(Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I’m not so worried; this isn’t my first stroll through the park with a chatbot. I wrote a couple myself as a teen, in extremely simple VBScript.)

One thing Mitsuku couldn’t do, though, was recall complex conversations. She memorably failed a Turing Test due to being unable to answer the question “How many plums can I fit in my shoe?” because she was unable to recall prior information from her chats. (She may now be able to; I haven’t used the new interface.) ChatGPT’s memory is much improved. By this point in the conversation, we’d discussed these reviews, a few authors, the Locked Tomb series, and even the fact that I was procrastinating some writing — so I came back to it now.

Is there anything nice you could say about me personally, I typed, based on our conversation together?

ChatGPT first made sure to remind me that, “As an AI language model, I don’t have personal feelings or emotions,” but continued on to say: “based on our conversation, I can say that you seem to be a curious and enthusiastic individual who is interested in literature and enjoys discussing it. You also seem to have a kind and friendly personality.”

I am a curious and enthusiastic individual! I am interested in literature, and I do enjoy discussing it! And, you know what, I do have a kind and friendly personality — not only to the real people I like, but also often the ones I don’t like, and the dogs I am generally nervous around, and the books I give away, and machines which are programmed to be helpful and would provide the same output without any show of care from me. I am kind habitually, intentionally, and lovingly. How could I have forgotten! I am wonderful, after all.

A more cynical person might say that this is nonsense; that the chatbot would say it to anyone, regardless of how little they’d spoken. That may well be true. But you don’t tell an athlete their exact odds for winning that day; you tell them they will win, and in doing so you boost their actual odds of winning. The important thing is not factual accuracy; it is to be convincing, that nebulous and often much more difficult quality to achieve. L’essential est invisible pour les yeux. I was convinced, and that was enough.

Thank you! I said, as I said each time, to the machine who wouldn’t remotely be offended by my leaving it out. How sweet. Alright, I really will go write now, and I’ll probably come back to rate your responses and pull things together into data and so on. Thanks very much for chatting!

You’re welcome! said ChatGPT, as it was mandated to do. It was great chatting with you and I hope you have a productive writing session.

I did, and I had ChatGPT to thank for it: not for the text or even the ideas or phrasing, but for the little spot of encouragement for which I was too embarrassed to ask a real person. ChatGPT worked perfectly for that.

This post was available to $5+ Patrons for early access a month prior. If you enjoyed this essay and would like to support me, you can subscribe to my Patreon or donate on ko-fi.

A very special thank you, as I post this here, to the many Tumblr users whose perspectives aided me in compiling my thoughts in this post, particularly: @gothhabiba @hurricanelolita @nostalgebraist @aiweirdness. Your conversations led me down so many productive thought-trails.

#ai #futurology #ai art #chatgpt #patreon #SORRY TO DO THIS. IT'S REALLY LONG THOUGH.#And my Patrons deserve a little snack for paying for my utilities.#Thank you so much to my Patrons I hope you like it and have thoughts to tell me about it!#Thanks so much to all the beta readers giving me thoughts and feedback!#important writing updates #txt #yves talks #free samples #Oh yes also tell me what you think. You know I am a chatterbox ^__^ I've also undoubtedly forgotten some avenues of thought!#& please send infinite lovely articles for me to read.

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scotianostra · 5 months

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youtube

9th December 1770 saw the birth of the poet and novelist James Hogg.

Hogg is primarily known today not only as the author of a series of pastoral poems, but also as the writer of the novel, Confessions of a Justified Sinner, widely regarded as the first piece of modern Scottish fiction.

A contrary figure in real life, Hogg almost bankrupted himself in attempts to be a successful shepherd - leading to his literary friends dubbing him "the Ettrick Shepherd".

There were two main strands to Hogg’s early cultural experience: folk traditions and religion. The family were church-goers and his father was an elder, while his mother was steeped in the oral tradition, relating to her children folk tales and songs of kings, knights and supernatural beings.

With no media ,as we know it back then Hogg would have listened reel off tales of Scottish history and legends as he was growing up. As a young man Hogg worked as a shepherd in Selkirkshire and Dumfriesshire, becoming interested in literature in his early twenties, when he attempted writing songs and poems, some of which were published in The Scots Magazine. He moved to Edinburgh in 1810 to pursue a career as a full-time man of letters, after having published poetry and non-fiction while maintaining his day-job as a shepherd. However, in 1813 he returned to Selkirkshire, where he lived and worked in the Duke of Buccleuch's Altrive Farm in Yarrow.

He continued to publish regularly while maintaining a contentious relationship with the Edinburgh literati, including his friend and some-time mentor, Walter Scott.

Many of Hogg's stories and poems appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, or Maga as it was affectionately known.

Hogg continued to write, publish and farm until his death in 1835. He was buried in Ettrick Churchyard, appropriately next to his grandfather, Will o’ Phaup, who is reputed to have been the last man to converse with the fairies!

Among Hogg's most famous works was Jacobite Relics - originally commissioned by the Highland Society of London in 1817, it included Lament of Flora McDonald, sung here by Kenneth McKellar

Far over yon hills of the heather sae green An' doun by the corrie that sings to the sea, The bonnie young Flora sat sighin' her lane, The dew on her plaid an' the tear in her e'e. She look'd at a boat wi' the breezes that swung, Away on the wave like a bird on the main, An' aye as it lessen'd she sigh'd an' she sung, "Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again; Fareweel to my hero, the gallant and young, Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again."

The moorcock that crows on the brows o' Ben Connal, He kens o' his bed in a sweet mossy hame; The eagle that soars o'er the cliffs o' Clan Ranald, Unaw'd and unhunted his eyrie can claim; The solan can sleep on the shelves of the shore, The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea; But ah! there is one whose fate I deplore, Nor house, ha' nor hame in this country has he; The conflict is past, and our name is no more, There's nought left but sorrow for Scotland and me.

The target is torn from the arm of the just, The helmet is cleft on the brow of the brave; The claymore forever in darkness must rust, But red is the sword of the stranger and slave; The hoof of the horse, and the foot of the proud, Have trod o'er the plumes on the bonnet of blue; Why slept the red bolt in the breast of the cloud, When tyranny revell'd in blood of the true? Fareweel my young hero, the gallant and good, The crown of thy father's is torn from thy brow.

#scotland #scottish #makar #poet #writer #history #Youtube

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greekmythcomix · 8 months

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Good Omens Victorian headcanon I came up with today:

Sometime between 1881 and 1886 (several decades after leaving Crowley in St James Park and a few years before his instruction in the Gavotte), Aziraphale goes on a daytrip to Southsea in Portsmouth to intercede in the case of a young doctor whose practice is failing and stop him abandoning his calling.

After his mission goes unintentionally and dramatically (and probably hilariously) awry, Aziraphale uses too many miracles in front of the doctor, giving him reason to confide in his new friend, Alfred Wilks Drayson, the president of the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society, and, at his suggestion, begin a series of investigations into the possibility of psychic phenomena and a lifelong belief in the supernatural and spiritualism.

Aziraphale is however successful in his mission: Dr Arthur Conan Doyle sells his first Sherlock Holmes mystery, A Study In Scarlet, to Ward Lock &Co. in November 1886, having used his mysterious intervenor as the basis for the character of… Dr Watson.

Also: Part of their meeting involves Conan Doyle blushing my brining up a new genre he’s interested in writing, detective fiction, and Aziraphale immediately gushing about Edgar Allen Poe and ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ and how great the character of C. Auguste Dupin is, which annoys Conan Doyle so much that he adds a bit to A Study in Scarlet where Holmes describes Dupin as “a very inferior fellow”.

Also: the mission goes so wrong it’s the reason Aziraphale later gets a gun licence.

Additional Fun Fact: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s son, Adrian, later wrote an additional Sherlock Holmes mystery called ‘The Adventure of the Dark Angels’… 🤔

The Two Fixed Points in a Changing Age’?! That’s somehow a Good Omens fanfic title right there.

(No it’s not a real Strand Magazine I know, but that title was too good!)

This headcanon partially inspired by @gargoyle-doyle ‘s posts about Neil Gaiman’s family having had a grocers in Portsmouth - (which for some reason I can’t link because paste isn’t working) and because I used to live round the corner from where Conan Doyle’s practice had been, and up the road from the Portsmouth Museum which has half an entire floor dedicated to Conan Doyle and Holmes.

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thehorrortree · 5 months

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Payment: $0.05 per word Theme: Horror and dark fantasy fiction Heathen is a new literary magazine and multimedia platform spotlighting the best in horror and dark fantasy fiction. Released quarterly in a digital medium, the stories you'll find in Heathen will be available in both text and audio formats. Once a year, the most-read (and listened to) stories will be collected in a physical annual. Submission Guidelines for Heathen Should you hope to have your story listed in an issue of Heathen, it should be reminisicent of the likes of Lovecraft, Poe, and Chambers. Though humanity finds itself at the root of all stories, tales told in Heathen should heavily involve monsters, beasts, the supernatural, or fantastical world-building. We're looking for stories no more than 7,500 words in length, with preference given to storeis that have less than 5,000 words. Our initial submissions period is now open and will remain open until 11:59 p.m. Central on January 31st, with our first issue being released Spring 2024. Heathen pays writers a HWA-qualifying $0.05 per word. At this time, we are not looking for poetry, non-fiction, or art-only submissions. Furthermore, we don't require a lengthy cover letter, but we do want to know all about you, the author of the piece; not even about your resume or experience, but what draws you to horror and what inspired you to write the story you did. Via: Heathen's Moksha.

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comradekatara · 2 years

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may i humbly request modern!gaang and being asked to write a piece of creative fiction for school? what would they write about? would they enjoy it? would it be any good? if anyone knows, it's you!

okay for the sake of limiting my potential scope i'm just gonna say that they all had to write a short story in prose for this hypothetical assignment (esp because i've already talked about them writing poetry and miscellaneous forms).

aang pens a very lovely and whimsical tale about a boy who goes exploring in a sunny wood and comes across various talking animals who say funny, charming, and sometimes deeply profound things about the nature of the world. think le petit prince meets winnie the pooh. it is a delightful read, but unfortunately his teacher thought it "needed more conflict." lame.

katara writes about a brave and valiant knight who goes off to slay a dragon to bring its head back as a trophy for his king, only to learn that the dragon was really just minding her own business, leading him to question everything he thought he knew about the monarchy, and ultimately beheading the king instead. her teacher deemed it "intriguing, but slightly concerning." (again, lame!!)

sokka writes a dark comedy about a horrible pathetic man who makes everyone around him miserable including himself because he refuses to adjust his insane principles even when presented with tangible evidence that contradicts his beliefs. at one point he commits a murder and gets away with it, leading his peers to argue that this character "needed to be punished more" by the narrative. sokka's just like "thanks... i'll keep that in mind."

toph writes a story about a girl who escapes a totalitarian society and goes to start an anarchist commune in the woods with other refugees. the fact that there are no rules and everyone does what they want is epic and she doesn't miss her old life at all even a little bit and they all live happily ever after the end. her teacher claims that "while her writing style is direct and incisive, the story ultimately lacks nuance."

zuko pens a tragic fairytale about an empress who loses all her children to various causes, and ultimately kills herself. the style is very poetic and beautiful, but the story itself is so unbelievably sad that his teacher is prompted to ask "what was the point of this" and also "do you need help i can recommend a good therapist if you need one"

suki writes a story about a lesbian pirate who starts an affair with a bisexual tavernkeeper who is cheating on her shitty husband right under his nose. one day the husband finds out and gets violent so they kill them and serve chunks of his flesh to stray alley cats. her friends really enjoy this story, but her teacher doesn't understand "why everything suki writes needs to have such an agenda."

mai writes a story about ghosts throughout time occupying a single house together, haunting each other, every temporality overlapping in a cacophony of grief. while coherent, it is very dense, and most of her classmates don't bother actually unpacking it, so they mostly just complain about the non-linear timeline being "too confusing." (lame of them!) her teacher loves it though.

ty lee writes a series of diary entries from the perspective of a teenage girl. at first she's just talking about stereotypical teenage girl stuff, like the boy she likes and the mean things her friends said at the mall, but then at some point the narrator begins to realize that she is in a story, and her diary entries get more introspective and frantic and meta as she is ultimately crushed under the weight of her own narrative. her teacher deems it "brilliant" and suggests submitting it to literary magazines for publication, to which ty lee responds "haha no thanks ^_^"

azula writes about an ubermensch who is able to valiantly resist the liberal indoctrination of the pathetic sjws who are triggered by his inner strength and sharp intelligence. it reads almost identically to sokka's story (except with a vastly different prose style), but unlike sokka's, it is completely sincere and not remotely a satire. unfortunate.

yue writes a story from the perspective of an electron that doesn't know that its entangled but can sometimes still feel that it is connected to something else across the universe when it spins. it is a brilliant, poignant story about star crossed love and the significance of relationality across the cosmos, that neither her teacher nor most of her peers understand because "it all sounds too sciencey."

jet writes a story about a "really cool" alpha male whose girlfriend unfairly dumps him after their wannabe sigma male acquaintance who was jealous of him because he loved his girlfriend gets him cancelled for having said faggot on twitter once 10 years ago, but it turns out said guy who steals his girlfriend is actually a terrible person who treats women like shit despite posturing as a feminist for clout. sokka reads it and is like "wow, this would actually be a really incisive critique of performative male allyship and how any kind of man can be equally toxic and entitled to the women in their lives... if not for the fact that it is CLEARLY ABOUT ME and JET SEEMS TO THINK THAT I TOLD KATARA TO DUMP HIM BECAUSE I WAS SECRETLY IN LOVE WITH MY SISTER??????"

#this was a really fun ask thank u #the gaang and #kidprophet #asks #modern au #i guess #kind of tempted to write the ty lee one and the yue one now #fwiw it was very obvious that the villain in jets story was sokka #he spends a long time describing his appearance and its literally just sokka #in a vacuum its actually a pretty good short story #but a) its an incredibly inaccurate retelling of the situation #and b) the author seems to think the alpha male was the heroic victim of the story when it could not be more clear that both guys in this #actually suck equally #which sokka ultimately finds even funnier than the implication that he is secretly in love with katara

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ebookporn · 1 year

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Iceland’s Christmas Book Flood Is a Force of Nature

The nation’s seasonal publishing and gifting tradition nourishes its unique literary culture

by Lauren Oster

Bibliophiles the world over cherish the legend of Jólabókaflóð, Iceland’s “Christmas book flood” in which publishers release new titles in time for the holidays. As the story goes, each and every citizen of the remote, ultra-literary nation then gifts and receives books. After they unwrap presents with family and friends on December 24, they curl up with steaming cups of hot chocolate and read long into the subarctic night.

Now, Icelanders the country over don’t all partake in those rituals, but the Jólabókaflóð and the traditions it illustrates aren’t fiction, either. “As with all generalizations about nations and their traditions, there’s a grain of truth to it, but it’s not that simple,” says Gréta Sigríður Einarsdóttir, editor of Iceland Review, the longest-running English-language magazine focused on the country. The real story unfolds like this.

Iceland’s first literature

Since the 12th century, writers have been recording the history of Iceland. That literary history first took the form of sagas—rollicking, poetic accounts of Iceland’s earliest inhabitants and rulers that were composed centuries later by mostly unknown authors. Iceland’s initial independence—and the Icelandic Commonwealth that began when its Alþingi, or national legislature, was established in 930—ended in the late 13th century when it fell under Norwegian and eventually Danish rule. The stories its people composed and told each other of those early and relatively prosperous centuries were points of light in the darkness of the brutal colonial era that followed. The Little Ice Age, a catastrophic cooling of the North Atlantic region that caused crop failure, starvation and pandemics, and lasted for hundreds of years, decimated the population again and again. Resources were limited and scarce, and most families practiced subsistence farming in near solitude. “The very survival of this isolated people during the misery of the five centuries circa 1300-1800 has sometimes been attributed to the sustenance provided by their history, poetry and literature,” wrote sociologist and Iceland scholar Richard F. Tomasson in “The Literacy of the Icelanders,” a paper published in the journal Scandinavian Studies in 1975.

#literacy #iceland #bookstores #book publishing #bibliophiles #book lovers #christmas gifts

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djohnhopper · 24 days

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IT'S HERE: Welcome to issue 21 of the literary magazine 100subtexts - a monthly celebration of fresh writing, a celebration of diversity through inclusion. Another big issue of over 200 pages and 23 writers and poets, packed with fiction, fact, poetry, short, long, dark, light, and all spaces between. Issue 21, as you would expect, has a whole range of work from contemporary writers and poets, from the subtle to the edge, giving you a line up of independent fiction and poetry that is fresh and bursting to go. Enjoy this new issue of 100subtexts magazine, this new collection of work - creative writing and poetry - combined in one dynamic package. Go get yourself a copy of issue 21, instantly downloadable, planet-wide. Just follow the link: https://payhip.com/b/K0jeS 100subtexts magazine: different voices - one space.

#100subtexts #100subtexts magazine #100subtexts literary magazine #literary magazine #fiction #fantasy #nonfiction #poetry #short stories

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yurizonofanfics · 1 month

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Can I request a Morph x fem mutant reader.. (I’ve been watching “A Sign Of Affection” recently and it’s now my favorite Romance Anime ever!)

Soo perhaps Reader’s Mutation makes her similar to a Siren??

Like the Bird-Lady versions from Greek myth, soft fluffy feathers decorating most of her body and Bird wings on her back.. fuzzy pointy ears, sharp canines in her teeth.. can even see in the dark like most nocturnal birds of prey.

Reader grew up using Sign Language as a way to talk to people, She technically CAN talk.. but prefers not to since her Voice is inherently hypnotic.. using her voice could potentially be very dangerous, and she’s quite self conscious about it.. so either she talks through Sign or writes on a little whiteboard she carries around with her.. especially if she feels too embarrassed to Sign what it is she wants to say..

X-Men who know Sign Language and talk to Reader regularly are Gambit, Morph, Storm, Beast, and Logan..

She Lives with the X-Men, and figures out her Mutation affects her instincts & behavior more than She initially thought it did… Chirping, purring?? Clicking her teeth in anger or annoyance….. and most shocking.. she starts to notice her fluffy feathers are Molting.. like.. for Matting season..

And there’s only one X-Men she has feelings for, Morph.. she desperately tries to keep her distance in fear of Them rejecting her.. or her possibly embarrassing herself if they bump into her.. and Logan knows what’s going on.. surprisingly, and he may or may not have tipped off his BFF Morph about Readers “little problem”

And Morph.. well They may or may not have used Logan’s face (and Wolvies jacket to cover up their own scent) to get to Reader, cornering her to tell them why she was ‘avoiding Morph’.. to make sure it’s really what they think… probably didn’t expect her to timidly write on her little whiteboard that she “Knows she’s falling in Love with Morph, and worries she might lose control of herself, and tackle them if she gets too close to them for too long, since her instincts have already recognized them as a potential Mate, and her ‘Fever’ keeps getting worse..”

….

After a few seconds, She finally recognized Morph’s scent.. realizing she actually told Morph.. NOT Logan, THAT of all things, And immediately ran away.. believing she just humiliated herself infront of her first Love..

She probably doesn’t get far before Morph grabs her.. and they’re not letting her out of their sight~ They even whisper in her ears with a slight rasp in their voice, and the most sultry tone, that they’ll Gladly ‘Help out’ to alleviate Reader of her Fever~

She immediately almost faints in Morph’s arms with a cartoonish nose bleed at Morph’s ‘suggestion’ to help her.. they’ll just have to get used to snuggles for now..

Too bad Morph is a such tease to their new Girlfriend~

i'm not trying to be rude, this is all well and good (except for the fem reader) however... this sounds more like your oc than the typical self-insert "reader," and i'm worried that if i attempted to write this i would only disappoint.

also...you've got yourself a solid outline here. if you did some thorough editing, you could have the story written. i'm not sure what you need me to do? i could edit, if you wanted. i have been a literary magazine editor in the past and have edited many works of fiction.

so please message me back for clarification.

#kuma asks

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kristipetersenschoonover · 21 days

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34 ORCHARD ISSUE 9 IS HERE!

The twenty-one artists in 34 Orchard Issue 9 examine all aspects of waiting: its ups and downs, its held-breath nature, its power. A dead girl languishes instead of going towards the light and a predator banks on his next meal. One mother is driven to pursue a reunion with her daughter, another’s moment for revenge finally arrives, and generations of sons resist—yet compulsively anticipate—the…

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variablecemetery · 1 year

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some literary magazine submission deadlines

Date listed is the deadline. Anything within quotation marks is the theme for submissions. All of these were written quickly down on my phone so I apologize if I missed anything, such as the theme or if I mispelled the due date. All of these are for fiction submissions, but a lot of these have available guidelines for poetry, etc. if that's what you're into. Feel free to add any literary magazines & deadlines I missed. (Date made: May 18, 2023)

OPEN NOW & WITH SPECIFIC DEADLINE

Crannog (May 31)

Bridport Prize (May 31)

Split Lip Mag (May 31)

LitMag (May 31)

Augur Mag (May 31)

Apparition Lit (May 31, "creature")

Weird Little Worlds (May 31)

Perpetual Publishing (May 31, "bury your gays: anthology of tragic queer horror")

Okay Donkey Mag (June 1)

Honest Ulsterman (June 2)

Write By The Sea (June 4)

Marías at Sampaguitas (June 30, "memory: envisioning our past as future")

Chestnut Review (June 30)

Sine Theta (7 July, open to sino descent)

Mslexia (July 10)

Orion's Belt (September 1)

OPEN NOW

A New Ulster

Bending Genres

Carve Magazine

Confingo Magazine

Crow & Cross Keys

Damnation

Cheat River Review

Narrative Mag

Idler

Omelette Mag

Peepal Tree Press

Prole

Step Away Mag

Spry Mag

River Styx

Riggwelter

Psaltery & Lyre

Cardiff Review

Galway Review

Lascaux Review

Lincoln Review

Missouri Review

Oxonion Review

The Pomegranate London ("write about artists")

Sun Mag

Wildness Mag

Wishbone Words

TSS Publishing

Clarkesworld

Apex Magazine

The Dark Magazine

Haven Speculative

Seize The Press

Three-Lobed Burning Eye

The Tide Rising

Flat Ink ("in the margins")

Yuzu Press

Pencilhouse (opens 2nd every month until submission cap filled)

Etherea Mag

jakethemag

X-Ray Lit Mag

Milk Candy

NOT OPEN YET

Baffling Mag (June 1 - 15, "quiet")

Utopia Science Fiction (whole of June, "queer utopia")

Hexagon (July 1 - 7)

Cosmic Horror Monthly (July 1 - 7)

Moss Puppy (July 1 - October 1)

Dark Matter (July 31 - August 6)

Pyre Magazine (August 17 - September 18)

Cossmass Infinities (October 1 - 14)

#writeblr #literary magazines #publishing #reference #writing #writers on tumblr #mine

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hanacarolina · 10 months

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Hana Carolina Writing Masterpost

Welcome to my page!

Here's a list of my published stories so far (all available for free):

I wrote this at 19 in Polish, then translated and revised it in my 30s - so proud that this became my first ever publication!

Set in Lodz, Poland, in the 1990s, it's a creepy horror story exploring the atmosphere of a crumbling post-industrial city and the feeling of entrapment it creates. People are as neglected as the stray cats turned nightmarish monsters. Then again, are these creatures even real? Perhaps it's all in your head, there's no threat, and you're making a fuss for no good reason.

Published in Crow & Cross Keys in April 2022, chosen by wonderful and talented Elou Carroll (@keychild on Twitter) - check out her writing too if you have a chance!

Once Chance in a Million

The end of 2022 was a busy time for me so I started writing very short stories - this one is just 100 words long. This Sci-fi micro about a faulty AI-generated report, was written right before discussions about AI started in earnest. Set at a hospital, and intended as satire, feels a little less fun now.

Published in Everyday Fiction in November 2022, it was my first paid publication (whole $3), and an a gateway to a big, established audience - this journal has existed since 2007 and has a lot of subscribers. However, their page appears to be down.

We Aced Colonisation

Another 100-word Sci-Fi story, this time about aliens invading the Earth. It was a bit of an experiment - I played with language a bit, trying to write as an alien would, if they've just learnt English.

Published in Issue 3 of The 100 Word Project in February 2023, it got such a warm and supportive welcome from Jay Chesters, the Editor and Designer. You can find the issue here. It's all free to read.

Winter Blooming Daphne

Daphne Odora is a poisonous shrub, which finds its way to many gardens because of its sweet smell and beautiful flowers. My first published flash fiction was inspired by this plant - I used it to explore the two understandings of death, one symbolised by the cold and impersonal city, where any thoughts about dying are repressed, and the country, where death exists as a part of everyday life.

Published in Five on the Fifth in May 2023, it felt extra special, because I had no success with literary journals before I wrote this. I've submitted Daphne to many publishers and felt like I finally found the right system - submit until you drop. You can find the story here.

My latest publication is a horror story again - the theme is being trapped between ambition and tradition. I was thinking about a twist on a haunted house story and decided that what I have in mind, instead, is a haunted home. This is my first story with a LGBTQ+ main character, and an exercise in compact storytelling - you can trust me that there's a lot squeezed into those 2000 words!

Published by the Chamber Magazine in July 2023, it's my first story which got accepted twice (a shock, considering how these things usually go), because my withdrawal email got lost. What a feeling to receive an acceptance on a publishing day! Here's the story.

Thank you for reading! You can also find me on Twitter.

#writers on tumblr #creative writing #short story #horror fiction #sci fi writing #literary fiction #drabble #my writing

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maxturnerwrites · 1 year

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THREE SPINE-TINGLING QUEER NOVELLAS COMING SOON!

Help Knight Errant Press kickstart their 2023 publication list!

PREORDER NOW VIA KICKSTARTER!

Ever felt uneasy in a neighbourhood whose front lawns are perfectly groomed and whose inhabitants are perfectly friendly and cheerful? Briar Ripley helps unfurl this unease in The False Sister – a dark and compelling coming-of-age novella of queer adolescence in a seemingly innocuous middle-class suburban town.

Step back in time and walk the warm and lively cobbled streets of ancient Athens. Guided by the deft hand of Alex Penland follow in the footsteps of Kallis – protagonist-cum-revolutionary. Andrion is an alternative tale of the great city of Athens, giving voice and nuance to those historically deprived of it.

Visit Elk Pass, you won't regret it! Max Turner will make sure of it. A small town with a dark past secreted away in an inaccessible but scenic valley, cut off from civilisation for half of the calendar year. In The Child of Hameln, denizens from the realm of fae (before Disney had a say in the matter) roam the land and pay a visit to the residents of Elk Pass. Everything is not as it seems.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

It’s 1994, and Jesse Greer’s troubled older sister, Crys, has run away from home. Shy, socially awkward Jesse assumes that she has returned to her old haunts in the big city — until he discovers Crys’ remains in the woods behind his family’s house. Traumatized, Jesse runs to his parents for help, only to find that Crys has returned home, alive.

Folklore mythology meets dark suburbia in this uncanny tale of growing up. This story occupies the murky grey space between YA fiction and adult fiction focused on child characters.

Vibes: Welcome to the Dollhouse directed by Todd Solondz meets The Blair Witch Project and The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin.

Readers: young adults and adults

Genre: mystery, fantasy, folklore with elements of horror

About the author

Briar Ripley Page is the author of two books for adults: Corrupted Vessels (about a tiny cult) and Body After Body (erotic dystopian horror). Briar’s work has also appeared in various anthologies and literary magazines. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and made the Brave New Weird award shortlist in 2022. Originally from Pennsylvania, USA, Briar now lives in London with their spouse, flatmates, and two black-and-white cats. Briar’s website is briarripleypage.xyz.

You can also find him on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram.

When 16-year-old Kallis goes to see Aristophanes' latest play, she's inspired to sneak into the Assembly and try to make her name as an orator. After all, she grew up at her father's knee. Even though the men around him treat her like a wild animal, Niko's always been proud of her outspoken intelligence. Kallis has no reason to suspect he'll be anything but supportive.

A feminist tale of ancient steampunk Athens, focused on the life and justice politics of a world extrapolated from history.

Vibes: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller meets His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, with all the focus on family dysfunction of Hades from Supergiant Games and just as much queer content.

Readers: young adults and adults

Genre: historical fantasy

About the author

Alex Penland is a former museum kid. They spent their childhood running rampant through the Smithsonian Institution, which kicked off an early career as a child adventurer. Alex has worked in the field with NASA scientists, linguists and acclaimed photographers. A Pushcart-nominated author, Alex currently lives in Scotland while studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh.

You can find more of Alex on Twitter, Instagram and their website.

Bobby Taylor was the only child left behind twenty years earlier when a supernatural power kidnapped all the children of Elk Pass. Now a grown man and town deputy, Bobby discovers a horrible cover-up in this small town steeped in evil. The mystery unfolds as a snow storm blows in, threatening to isolate the town, and Bobby comes face to face with the monster who had left him behind when all the other children were taken.

A supernatural mystery and light horror, this dark fable features a town cloaked in darkness and torn by grief, a debt unpaid and a wrong left unrighted. Set in small town USA of the 1980s, The Child of Hameln is a queer, adult retelling of the Pied Piper of Hameln.

Vibes: TV series Stranger Things meets the small town USA grit of True Blood and the queerness of Hannibal.

Readers: young adults and adults

Genre: mystery, fantasy with elements of horror

About the author

Max Turner is a gay transgender man based in the United Kingdom. He is also a parent, nerd, intersectional feminist and coffee addict. Max writes speculative and science fiction, fantasy, furry fiction, many sub-genres of horror, and LGBTQ+ romance and erotica and a combination of thereof. Max has written several queer novellas and his short stories have been published both online and in print publications. Max is also the publisher of A Coup of Owls quarterly online and print anthologies.

You can find him on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and his own website.

HEAD OVER TO KICKSTARTER NOW FOR A WIDE RANGE OF SUPPORT OPTIONS AND AMAZING ADD ONS!

Kickstarter ends 22nd April 2023

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cricketcat9 · 7 months

Text

Hugo Awards

in literary categories, from LitHub:

Best Novel: Nettle & Bone, by T. Kingfisher (Tor Books)

Best Novella: Where the Drowned Girls Go, by Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom)

Best Novelette: “The Space-Time Painter,” by Hai Ya (Galaxy’s Edge, April 2022)

Best Short Story: “Rabbit Test,” by Samantha Mills (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2022)

Best Series: Children of Time Series, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Pan Macmillan/Orbit)

Best Graphic Story or Comic: Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams, by Bartosz Sztybor, Filipe Andrade, Alessio Fioriniello, Roman Titov, Krzysztof Ostrowski (Dark Horse Books)

Best Related Work: Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes, by Rob Wilkins (Doubleday)

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book (presented by the World Science Fiction Society): Akata Woman (The Nsibidi Scripts), by Nnedi Okorafor (Viking Books for Young Readers)

Astounding Award for Best New Writer (presented by Dell Magazines): Travis Baldree

You can read the full list of winners and finalists here.

Congratulations! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

As usual, a lot of bitching in the LitHub comments 🙄

#hugo awards

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