Ooh, Shiny!

After months of planning and sorting through story and art submissions, the staff at Dark Valentine is happy to announce that the inaugural issue is now available to download! In the summer issue you'll find horror, fantasy, SF, noir, and all sorts of stories that fall somewhere in between. My story, "The King of Elfland," is in there, along with all sorts of other mind-bending tales and blackly beautiful art.

Also, submissions for our Autumn issue are open until August 6, so if you have something you'd like to send in, fire away!

And no, it's not Lifestyles of the Sith and Famous.

Dark Valentine magazine is, to quote the publisher, a quarterly journal devoted entirely to dark fiction, which we define as any story in any genre that is disturbing, provocative, haunting, scary, dangerous, or any combination of those things. Think of classic stories like The Mummy’s Paw, The Open Window, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Lady or the Tiger? Think of Jack London’s To Build a Fire, William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, J.D. Salinger’s A Perfect Day for Bananafish and Tanith Lee’s Because Our Skins are Finer.

I'm the third part of the evil triumvirate running this dark venture -- Katherine Tomlinson is our illustrious publisher, and Joanne Renaud (suburbanbeatnik ) is the art director. I'm the editor.

We're looking for the following: Short stories in any genre so long as they fit under the overall heading of “dark.” Here are just a few genres we want to see: black humor, dark romance, urban fantasy, horror, mystery, SF, paranormal, dark fantasy, speculative, slipstream, surrealism, magical realism, lit fic, steampunk, splatterpunk, cyberpunk, dieselpunk, and so forth. Surprise us with your take on a famous fairy tale or an urban legend. You can go to the submission guidelines to get the full story. We do pay for stories and art ($10 each, but at least you can say you got paid for your work!).

I know I have a lot of fellow authors (and some artists) on my f-list, and I encourage any and all of you to submit if this sounds like it's up your alley. Spread the word!

See you on the other side.