By Wendy Delmater
Exotic locales
In the dead of winter, those in the northern climates want to get away from it all. In earth’s southern hemisphere, holiday vacations abound. Out with the old setting, in with the new.
Good fiction should take you somewhere – whether the depths of unplumbed emotions or to somewhere like the massive black hole some say is at the galactic core. And all of the stories we’ve chosen have notable tour guides, characters you will never forget, to take you there.
The singer central to Flood will take you to a world where the oceans are gone – and beyond.
Douen Mother will lead you to places of the heart that would frighten a Caribbean tour guide.
In the Season of the Blue Storms takes you into orbit around a gas giant in habited by beings that deal with some forces we cannot readily comprehend – and forces we can comprehend all too well
And The Winter Astronaut inhabits two far shores – the idyllic but lonely landscape of a terraformed world and the nimbus of old age.
Even our two flash pieces cause something exotic to touch everyday lives. And for souvenirs you can walk away with more of the excellent poetry we bring you every issue.
Some of our staff is in exotic locations. New submissions editor Rob Campbell hails from New Zealand; our new webmaster, Rebecca Simkin, is in Toronto Canada; Benjamin Buchholz is still deployed in Iraq; submissions editor Ilona Gordon resides in the gracious southern state of Georgia, and poetry editor Aleta Daknis lives in storm-battered Baton Rouge. Submissions editor Jon Paradise can’t help it if he lives in New Jersey, but we love him anyhow.
Speaking of the exotic, our fundraising model is new. We are trying something never before used in the genre that might interest you – do take a look at the Support Us page and see if you’d like to qualify for a free book by signing up for our automatic donor program. Or at least tell us what you think of the concept. We’d love to hear from you.
Let us know what you think of the fiction, too. Go ahead. Dive in. You know you need a vacation.
Happy New Year.
—Wendy S. Delmater, Managing Editor
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Copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted.
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