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2010-04-15T22:47:00.001-04:00

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Problems with email on 10/15?

2010-01-13T20:39:00.001-05:00

I'm running through queries right now, and three of them from the past several days relate to rejections that I sent on 10/15/09. I'm resending all critical emails from that day (about 25 of them) because that's a bit too much of a coincidence for me. I apologize for whatever glitch caused the problem.

Computer Rebuild = Delayed Publication

2009-08-31T16:23:00.002-04:00

My computer had to be completely reinstalled. I have all of my data, but as a result of the rebuild I'm going to take a few extra days to publish the magazine for September.

Reprint of Ripley Patton's "Traveling By Petroglyph"

2009-08-13T12:10:00.003-04:00

Ripley Patton's "Traveling By Petroglyph", originally published in our October 2008 issue, has been picked up as a reprint in Flash Me magazine. Congratulations, Rip!

Editorial Calendar Through November

2009-08-02T14:44:00.005-04:00

Here's the editorial calendar for the next few months. This doesn't include Bruce Holland Rogers' contributions or the Classic Flashes. I publish on the first Tuesday or Thursday of the month, whichever comes first.

August: Going live on 8/4
* There Are No Great Truths Here -- Danielle Friedman
* Purpose -- R.W. Ware
* A Taste For Life -- Patrick Freivald

September: Going live on 9/1
* Suddenly Speaking -- Ray Vukcevich
* Doofus -- Mark Patrick Morehead
* How High the Moon -- Patrick Lundrigan

October: Going live on 10/1
* Eating It Too -- Kristine Kathryn Rusch
* Death Babies -- S. Craig Renfroe, Jr.
* The Door -- Damon Shaw

November: Going live on 11/3
* My Superpower -- Leslie A. Dow
* A Delivery of Cheesesteaks -- Alan Grayce
* Irma Splinkbottom's Recipe for Cold Fusion -- Janene Reichert Murphy

Publication Questions

2009-07-03T09:05:00.003-04:00

I just responded to an email that I thought I'd reprint here:

> Do you publish authors who have not yet been published?

Yes, often. The competition is fierce, though.

> How do I copyright my story?

By current US law, you own copyright the moment you write your piece. When I publish it, I do so with a copyright statement at the end. I don't actually "register" the copyright, but I'm obliged to take all reasonable steps in the event of a copyright violation.

> How many stories can I submit at one time?

I don't have a formal limit, but you don't do yourself any favors by submitting more than three at once.

> How long does a story you publish stay online?

Indefinitely. My contract also says that I get First Electronic Rights (i.e., this is not a reprint, and I'll be the first to publish it) AND a non-exclusive one-time right to publish the story in an anthology. "Non-exclusive" means that you can submit your story to other markets as a reprint *after* I publish it, and you can have it in other anthologies if they'll accept it, as long as everyone knows that I can publish it in my anthology as well. I will pay my authors royalties based on their word-count contribution to the overall word count of the anthology.

This latter information is all on our submissions page.

Reopened to Submissions

2009-06-18T07:22:00.003-04:00

It took longer than I expected, but we're reopened to submissions.

As a reminder, if you have a query, please send it to query at flashfictiononline dot com.

Two Important Items

2009-05-08T07:46:00.005-04:00

First: Hopefully this won't last long, but between an initial backlog and a serious email glitch that has hampered my efforts to track submissions, I am closing the magazine to submissions. I anticipate being reopened by the end of the month.

Second, and related: There is now a separate email for queries. Please send all queries to query at flashfictiononline dot com. I've had too many emails go into the ordinary submission queue, only for me to discover after two weeks that they're queries rather than stories. Hopefully this will help us all out.

This isn't as important as the other two -- well, unless you're on pins and needles -- but if you're waiting for a response from the latest winnowing round, we have completed it and acceptances / rejections will be going out shortly.

Next Publication Date: May 5, 2009

2009-05-01T13:35:00.003-04:00

As a reminder, we publish on the first Tuesday or Thursday of the month. Our May issue will be available on Tuesday, May 5. The lineup is:

* Bryan S. Wang, "Descent", a literary story that doesn't really make me long for the glory days of my youth.

* Isaac Espriu, "Jack Rabbit", a story that makes me, a Crackberry addict, worry about my future.

* KJ Kabza, "Billions of Stars", a story that makes me think that things aren't always so bad after all. :)

Bruce Holland Rogers will be with us as always. After all, he always hits his deadlines, even when self-imposed: he published his three April stories for shortshortshort.com subscribers late last night!

Our Classic Flash will again come from that incredibly rich source of humor, Punch. In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, which is a celebration of the victory of outnumbered Mexican soldiers against the French / Mexican army at Puebla in 1862, we'll be publishing the only war-oriented classic short-short story I could find that involved the French: To The Death, from the March 26, 1919 issue. I hope you'll be as amused as I was.

See you then!

Sluggish Responses

2009-04-13T09:13:00.002-04:00

I'm never the fastest guy in the world, but I'm a little worse than usual right now. We just had a baby last Tuesday, and the last few weeks have been slower than usual. I beg your patience.

Thanks,
Jake

Line-up for March

2009-03-01T09:59:00.003-05:00

It occurs to me that I haven't announced our line-up yet, so here it is. It's a music issue:

"Addiction" by Ariella Adler, a fantasy -- though more about the aftereffects of the fantastic than the fantastic itself. The music in this case is that of the sidhe.

"Gustav's Mars" by Emily Leverett, a science fiction story. It's about music and martians, but really about something more mundane when all's said and done. And yes, the narrator starts off dead.

"Trumpet Volunteer" by Oscar Windsor-Smith, a literary story? A fantasy? I guess it depends on your perspective. It's an odd one for me, but I like it and I hope you will, too.

We publish on the first Tuesday or Thursday of the month, so I'll see you sometime on March 3rd!

It's Official

2009-02-07T14:57:00.004-05:00

I feel a little bit like Steve Martin in The Jerk -- you know, that scene where he first sees his name in the phone book? -- because we received our International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) from the Library of Congress. (The Library administers the program in the US, but it is, as the name implies, an identifier that's recognized worldwide.) It's a minor thing that happens automatically if you apply, but it's still kinda cool to be official.

We are now officially ISSN 1946-1712.

(Flash prompt for you writers out there: read the two four-digit components as the birth and death dates of a time-traveling protagonist, born 1946 and died 1712.)

If any other 'zines are wondering how long it takes, they received my application on 11/20/2008, and I received the response this morning, 2/7/2009.

Going Live Tomorrow

2009-02-02T22:08:00.002-05:00

We go live on the first Tuesday or Thursday of every month, so you'll see stories updated sometime tomorrow, February 3, 2009. New stories by Jay Lake, Robert Borski, and Tony Rogers, along with Bruce Holland Rogers's column and a classic from Punch.

Podcast RSS error

2009-01-26T09:36:00.002-05:00

I just realized that I had the Podcast RSS pointing to the development machine instead of the live machine. Sorry about that. "What the Moon Brings" by H.P. Lovecraft and "James Brown [etc.]" by Stefanie Freele are both now live and working.

Line-up for January

2008-12-22T11:37:00.002-05:00

January's line-up includes three stories:

* Mike Resnick's "The Fallen Angel"
* Stefanie Freele's "The Flood of '09"
* Robin Gillespie's "As Their Eyes Touched God"
* A Classic Flash by Anton Chekhov, "An Enigmatic Nature"

Mike's piece is a reprint, but (a) it's an out-of-print almost-20-year-old story, (b) it's a really good story, and (c) Mike is the winningest SF author ever, so I'll break my usual "no reprints" rule for this one. Interestingly, this isn't a science fiction story.

Stefanie's story falls exactly one year after her first story with us, "James Brown is Alive and Doing Laundry in South Lake Tahoe". We nominated that one for a Pushcart Prize.

Robin's bio refers to graphic novel work, but not short story publications, so this might just be her first one. When she emails me her bio, I'll know more. :)

Bruce Holland Rogers will be with us as well, of course -- even though he's traveling to Egypt. Of course we wish him safe travels.

Happy New Year!

Flash Fiction Online story wins First Annual Micro Award!

2008-12-01T13:59:00.001-05:00

This is cross-posted from News and Headlines, since it's both news (which goes on News and Headlines) and site-specific (which goes here).

Congratulations to Bruce Holland Rogers for winning the First Annual Micro Award with his story, "Reconstruction Work"!

We published this story in our very first issue, barely making the Micro Award deadline. It has also been noted on cnn.com -- which is, I think, only the second reference to Bruce on CNN (the other being a book review).

Robert Laughlin is the brainpower and administrator behind the Micro Awards. George Keithley and Clark Brown were judges for the first award; the second award will be judged by Stefanie Freele, Benjamin J. Biesek, and Len Fulton. (Remember Stefanie? She wrote the (now Pushcart-nominated) "James Brown is Alive and Doing Laundry in South Lake Tahoe" in our January issue -- the month after Bruce published his award-winning story.)

Congratulations to Bruce, and many thanks to Robert Laughlin and the rest of the Micro Award judges!

A Bunch of Wordz

2008-11-15T19:02:00.001-05:00

It's their "z", not mine. :) At any rate, they have some nice things to say about Dani Girl.

Coming on Halloween: Ray the Vampire

2008-10-28T16:05:00.003-04:00

"Ray the Vampire" by Mercedes M. Yardley will go live on Halloween. It's fun, and if you want to see what it's about (and get a look at a really cool text technology), check out this Wordle I made with its text.

Happy Halloween!

Hello? Hey - it's for you - Hollywood is calling

2008-09-03T00:09:00.002-04:00

While searching for some local writing gigs on Craigslist, I came across this interesting listing. A Chicago-based production company is seeking Flash Fiction stories for a film adaptation. It's not a paying gig from what the listing says, but you'd receive sole story credit and a copy of the film if your work is selected. I personally would *love* to see one of Flash Fiction Online's finest turned into a film. So who is going to submit?

Modified Publishing Schedule

2008-08-29T15:07:00.003-04:00

Starting in September (our next issue), we'll be shifting our publication schedule to the first Tuesday of the month. Thus, our next issue will launch on 9/2.

We have three great new stories ("Beyond The Pale" takes us to a bar and a question; "Just One Thing" is an insight into a Mexican family and inquisitive minds; "The Trick" is about a boy who... Well, you'll see) and a Classic Flash from Edgar Allan Poe. We hope you'll join us.

Blog Post I liked

2008-08-19T01:42:00.003-04:00

I particularly liked this blog post about Elizabeth Creith's "Stone the Crows". It's not earth-shattering, but it's real.

"Apologies All Around" Live at Drabblecast

2008-08-19T00:47:00.002-04:00

Norm Sherman at Drabblecast has released his podcast of Apologies All Around by Jeff Soesbe, which was originally published in our February issue. And even if you read it here already, it's so worth the sitcom treatment than Norm gives it -- funny and a little campy and totally different without mocking it or being crazy. Amazing job, Norm.

We're on CNN!

2008-08-15T16:01:00.003-04:00

Well, CNN.com, anyway:

Consequently there has been a proliferation of "flash fiction" on the Web, with E-zines and dedicated sites like Flash Fiction Online showcasing the talents of writers like Bruce Holland Rogers.

I knew that if my boring-but-descriptive name put us high up in Google it would be worth it... :)

Karen Smith Places in "Return To Luna" Writing Contest

2008-08-12T11:02:00.002-04:00

Yep, that's our very own Karen T. Smith on the list of finalists for the "Return to Luna" writing contest. She'll be published in the "Return to Luna" anthology. Karen, what other details can you provide for us?

Review at SFRevu.com

2008-08-03T22:04:00.002-04:00

Many thanks as always to Sam Tomaino for his ever-so-brief reviews of our ever-so-brief stories over at SFRevu. The story he made most note of, interestingly enough, is the oldest: Ambrose Bierce's "John Mortonson's Funeral".

While you're at it, some of you may be interested in the interview with Jay Lake and the review of The Dark Knight -- along with a ton of other great stuff.