GUIDELINES FOR SPACEPORTS & SPIDERSILK

 

Spaceports & Spidersilk is an online magazine for younger readers [8 to 17 and beyond].  Formerly it was called KidVisions.  Spaceports & Spidersilk features short stories, poems, and art, as well as brief essays on science and the environment, interviews, quizzes, contests, [and, quite frankly, anything else that is genre-oriented and will help encourage the younger generation to read...and to dream, especially about going to the stars].  We at Sam's Dot Publishing hope that younger writers and artists, as well as adults, will submit their work.

 

The genres for Spaceports & Spidersilk include fantasy, science fiction, and a category we are going to define as ‘shadow stories’.  Shadow stories are mild horror.  If you’ll forgive me for this, we are looking less for blood and gore, and more for snot.  Shadow stories should make the younger reader say, “Ewwww!  Gross!”  Or, to put it another way, we want campfire stories that will allow you to sleep in the tent afterwards.  We want spooky, not terrifying.

 

The guidelines for submissions to Spaceports & Spidersilk are simple and straightforward.  Here they are:

 

What we want:

Spaceports & Spidersilk will consider---

          genre stories of up to 2000 words.  We would prefer them under 1000.

          poetry of up to 25 lines.

          art, in color or black-and-white

          essays of up to 800 words.

          interviews and articles of up to 800 words

Spaceports & Spidersilk will accept reprints, provided they are identified as such, provided you have the rights to the work, and provided you tell us where and when the submission was first published.

 

What we DO NOT want:

          NO “bad language”.  This includes cussing, swearing, and those wonderful hyphenated words you use when you whack your thumb with a hammer.  You know what they are.  I don’t have to tell you.  Also, no racial epithets.  You know what those are, too.

          NO sex.  Your characters may kiss, or fall in love, or get married, but that’s all.

 

What we ALMOST DO NOT want:

          NO drugs, unless there are severe and very clear consequences to the character involved with them. 

          NO sexist language.  I said ‘almost’.  It is quite typical of boys of a certain age to say things like, “She can’t do that, she’s just a girl.”  Usually, in real life, such statements are preludes to valuable and sometimes painful lessons learned.  So it must be in the fiction you submit to Spaceports & Spidersilk.

 

Effective 01/01/2008, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff is the editor of Spaceports & Spidersilk.

 

Payment--Effective the issue of March 2008, the following payments apply:

          Spaceports & Spidersilk will pay $2.00 for each accepted original submission, $1.00 for reprints, and 10.00 for the door art.  We realize this is not a lot of money, but we are operating on a limited budget at this time.

 

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WORK:

          Please submit stories and essays [and articles, etc] as RTF attachments to Spacesilk at yahoo dot com.  You will have to convert this to a usable address, of course.  Please write SUBMISSION and the title of your piece in the subject line of your e-mail.

          Please submit poems in the body of the e-mail to Spacesilk at yahoo dot com.  You will have to convert this to a usable address, of course.  Please write SUBMISSION and the title of your piece in the subject line of your e-mail.

          Please submit art as a jpeg attachment to Spacesilk at yahoo dot com.  You will have to convert this to a usable address, of course.  Please write SUBMISSION and the title of your piece in the subject line of your e-mail.

 

If  Spaceports & Spidersilk accepts your submission, we will ask for your mailing address so that we may send your payment.  We will also ask for a brief bio of the writer or artist.

 

If you have any questions about this, or about Spaceports & Spidersilk, please e-mail them to Spacesilk at yahoo dot com.  Again, you will have to convert this to a usable address.