Writer's Grove
Fiction worth supporting
Hey Spiffy Peeps,
There’s a world I wanna live in. Usually it’s the world I’m currently reading about created by the brilliant mind of another human being. I lose myself in fictional worlds sometimes, and when the story ends I come back to this one, a bit sad the trip is over but enriched and better off for the journey.
Short fiction is perfect for wee trips when you don’t have a weekend for a novel. But short fiction markets are often, uh…what’s the word? PROBLEMATIC.
With most genre magazines you get an overdose of the same kind of world. Like ALL THE MYSTERY or ALL THE SCIENCE FICTION or ALL THE HOT WOMBAT SHOWER SCENES. Awesome places to visit, completely delicious, but not poster children for Moderation in All Things. There are only so many hot wombat shower scenes you can handle at a time.
Last year I heard about and backed a Kickstarter called Fireside Fiction, Year Two. I got 12 issues of awesome trips, friends. They offer a little bit of everything from varying genres in each issue: a short story, serial fiction, flash fiction, poetry, and an illustration by one of my favorite creative humans, Galen Dara.
[/COMMENCE PARENTHETICAL GEEKOUT]
Galen paints such varied and lush works of art. So evocative and gorgeous and WAUUGH! I love everything she does. It’s because of Fireside that I hired Galen to paint the cover for “The Chapel Perilous” and why I hired her to paint Oberon (revealing that soon) and why I will hire her again. [/END GEEKOUT]
So lookit, here’s the first issue of Fireside Fiction, Year Two, which I backed. Check it out. Click on “Love Song of the Lizard Boy” by Delilah S. Dawson. See Galen’s art. Read Delilah’s story. And then realize that both Galen and Delilah, along with everyone else in that issue, were paid fairly by Fireside, thanks to their subscribers who funded it through Kickstarter.
Most professional magazines pay 5-10 cents per word, skewing heavily toward the 5-cent range, which is the rate it’s been since Jimmy Carter. Fireside pays 12.5 cents per word. That’s $500 for a 4K-word story. Fair.
Fireside asks you for $24 for 12 issues. High quality writing and illustration for $2 an issue. I’m mightily entertained and the artists aren’t exploited. YES PLEASE.
Fireside Fiction Year 3 is trying to get funded right now; it’s in the final hours. They could really use your help. I backed it hard because it’s a beautiful collaboration of people and gives me so many worlds I want to live in.
And, by the way—these aren’t all worlds created by straight white dudes. I’m already a straight white dude and I want to see the world through different lenses because that helps me grow as a person. Fireside offers me (and you) a diverse platter of experiences, for which I’m grateful. Quite honestly it’s the kind of literary magazine I’d like to run myself if I had the time for that sort of thing.
It’s the best Kickstarter I’ve backed. Most Kickstarters I’ve backed have turned out to be disappointing, but this one exceeded expectations. If you have a hankerin’ for beautiful work and the means, please back it!
