Where Have All the ’Zines Gone?

Bad news in my in-box. Head honcho Ace Masters of Written Word (http://www.writtenwordmag.com/) wrote early this month that the magazine is on the rocks because someone has hacked their PayPal account. I noted in June that Chad Plunk, who founded and ran Short Fiction World (http://shortfictionworld.com/) closed the door on my submission before making an editorial decision regarding it.

I fondly remember Mud Rock, a fine print magazine, which folded January ’07. Now, Mouth Full of Bullets, a terrific mystery-detective magazine, is also defunct. There’s a continuing shake-out of many magazines, and the current weekly e-newsletter from Duotrope (http://www.duotrope.com/) notes five dying or unresponsive Websites, as well as a description of other fledging publishing enterprises. How come the volatility of Web publishing? Is this indicative of inept editors or over-energetic amateurs?

BJ Bourg, publisher of MFOB, wrote to me, “I've spoken with a few editors who were forced to shut down their magazines/e-zines, and nearly all were due to financial or health problems. Neither is true in my case. In actuality, you helped me solidify my decision. I read a message you posted on WordTrip (http://wordtrip.com/) where you mentioned having to ask me about the Spring Issue and then having to listen to me talk about working two jobs and publish the magazine. This made me realize two things. First, there was no law saying I had to publish a magazine. I was doing it for the sole purpose of helping other writers. When writers have to start asking me when an issue would be coming out or when I would be able to send payment for their story, that was the point when I was no longer helping them to the best of my abilities. Second, I realized I was putting MFOB before my family because I was putting every spare, non-working moment into MFOB, when I should have been spending it with them."

Ah, life. Where would it be without death—in love, finance or publishing?

An Inconvenient Truth—or More?

There’re countless reasons to be counted among the fallen. Theological, physiological, logistical…and ecological. This theme seemed to match itself against a neologism I ran across in the New York Times. Glenn Albrecht, an Australian philosopher, coined the word solastalgia to describe a form of homesickness or nostalgia one gets when still at home. Albrecht makes particular reference to environmental change in one’s surroundings due to development or climate change.
Thus, marrying solastalgia to the fallen resulted in “The Curious Reason Greta’s Heart Stopped Beating,” my whimsical look at the extremes in our culture. Super-editor Lisa Logan at MysteryAuthors--a Californian, environmentalist and founder of The Green Writing Challenge--may have recognized this situation.
Read it in its entirety at MysteryAuthors.com –http://mysite.verizon.net/mysteryauthors/. (Click on the “Minute Mystery” in the right-hand column, then on the contents page for June in the left-hand menu .)

A Nice Review of "Cruising the Green"

Coffee Time Romance has just given Cruising the Green of Second Avenue a nice “three cups” review. They say, “The life and times of Jake is [sic] once again fodder for a fascinating look into bachelorhood in the ‘60s. New York City is at the heart of it all for Jake and his friends. Their stories prove that at some point we all need to grow up and move on. Their roaring twenties have up and gone, and now Jake is finally ready to be an adult. But did he wait too long to realize that there can be life beyond the Big Apple? The quick wit and humor are back with this second installment, and worth the read.

Read it all at http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/Cruisingthegreenofsecondavenue.html --and then buy a copy at http://www.wildchildpublishing.com/content/view/426/125/. Help support a writer who needs periodic maintenance and accolades.

Death of a Webzine

Sad words this week from Chad Plunk, who founded and ran Short Fiction World (http://shortfictionworld.com). He’s shuttering his Windows and turning out the lights—and rejecting my submission before deciding to accept or reject it.

He wrote to me, “I’ve had a number of personal issues arise and we’re going to cease publication. The announcement will go out to everybody who has stories waiting this weekend, and officially be posted on the website. We don't have the time to commit that we expected and would rather do no job than a poor one.”

I suppose this also means the archival death of “Modern Love,” my story that he published in February this year. This leads to an interesting thought as people increasingly Google friends, associates, lovers and themselves. I check my name periodically and am surprised to see a history of my fiction, articles and press releases. Plus, there are links to my grandmother’s Chautauqua lectures, archived at the University of Iowa. And my great grandfather’s Civil War diaries online at MilitaryHistory.com. Writing lives on long after other things have changed.

Is Internet “biography” a new form of posterity, more enduring than a tombstone and less expensive than an endowed university chair? Perhaps. Conversely, if in the future there’s no electronic representation of a person on the Web, does he or she have less existence?

Humor in a Jugular Vein

I’ve always wondered if mystery writers—even readers—had a sense of humor. Noir isn’t funny and Sam Spade was never jocular. Of course, no one ever admits, “Gee, I’m sorry, but I’ve always been challenged by humor.”

So, with some trepidation I tried putting a satirical shot across the bow of detective fiction and came up with “The Case of the Checkered Murder” (www.MysteryAuthors.com, "Minute Mystery") to see what might happen. Self consciously, I then interviewed myself since no one else has come forward to ask pertinent (even impertinent) questions. Hey, if the esteemed playwright David Mamet can interview himself (since he never gives interviews), I thought, why don’t I give that a shot too? You can read it at MysteryAuthors’ blog link.

My thanks to super editor Lisa Logan at MysteryAuthors.com who proved satirical humor is acceptable. A small part of me, though, still remembers my journalism professor warning us budding news writers, “Death is never funny.”

On the Road Again

The hiatus in this blog came to an end as we packed up and moved from Cambridge back to the old haunts in Connecticut—to the home we’d lived in for 13 years. Yes, the real estate market has been sour, but if there hadn’t been bad news in trying to sell our house there’d have been no news at all.

Till this past few days. We think we have a buyer and that we'll be moving on by summertime. More on that later, but in the meantime I realized I’d been rather prolific in writing over the past year. Must’ve been due to being cloistered in a 20th-floor apartment in a strange city. Breaking news: “The Case of the Checkered Murder,” a satire, will be carried by MysteryAuthors.com next month. A murder mystery surrounding my Newark detective, called “The Bone Yard” will appear in Big Pulp in June, and “Paper Cut” will be carried by them in 2009.

Maybe being circumscribed by four walls with little to do was good for me. Maybe it was good for Rodolfo in La Boheme. It’s the starving artist syndrome—although I’ve been poor and rich is better. Being accepted by editors is best for the soul, however.

Who Was This Author, Illustrator, Naturalist?

I love a good mystery and I found one in Holling Clancy Holling. Holling was a writer/illustrator you could sink deeply into. Certainly more than the vanity children’s books written today by celebrities. Yet, nowhere could I find a single source of all the books he wrote, published or illustrated. No biography exceeded a handful of bare facts about his life. His work has remained in print for more than six decades—and yet, so little information is out there.

Over a period of two months I diligently tracked down all available info to get insights—and sometime just raw facts—about HCH. After a lengthy exchange of e-mails, UCLA's archivists proved too busy to answer my query, but a kind librarian in Jackson Co., Mich.—Holling's home—provided a wealth of info and an obit. Other individuals were also helpful. The article has now gone to the American Book Collectors of Children's Literature for their fall 2008 newsletter. You can read a blog posting of it at http://wordtrip.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=201873&sid=1f8a86880ffca1858fe21b1b44d4c8e9#201873.

It was interesting how some university librarians/archivists were so “busy”, while under different circumstances others (notably UConn and the U. of Iowa) have been angels at putting their collections online for the public. Yes, I remember the good ones when they ask for annual support. Support your librarians, the unsung heros of writers everywhere!