Uncanny Magazine Year Two: The Return of the Space Unicorn
THE KICKSTARTER IS LIVE! 40% already, and the first day isn’t over yet.
Three-time Hugo Award-winner Lynne M. Thomas (Apex Magazine, Chicks Dig Time Lords, Glitter & Mayhem) and three-time Hugo Award nominee Michael Damian Thomas (Apex Magazine, Queers Dig Time Lords, Glitter & Mayhem) are launching a Kickstarter for Year Two of their professional online SF/F magazine: Uncanny: A Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Each issue contains new and classic speculative fiction, fiction podcasts, poetry, essays, art, and interviews. Uncanny Magazine is raising funds via Kickstarter to cover some of its operation and production costs for the second year, with an initial goal of $18,700. The Kickstarter launched on August 11, 2015, and run through September 10, 2015.
“Uncanny features passionate SF/F fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, and provocative nonfiction, with a deep investment in our diverse SF/F culture. We publish intricate, experimental stories and poems with verve and vision from writers from every conceivable background. The Uncanny team believes there is room in the genre for stories that inspire the imagination, challenge beliefs, and make readers feel. With the hard work of the best staff and contributors in the world, Uncanny Magazine delivered everything as promised with the Year One Kickstarter. Uncanny has received outstanding reviews and community support. Some pieces from our first issue in 2014 even garnered award nominations and a Year’s Best anthology inclusion. Though Uncanny has developed several additional funding streams to make the magazine sustainable, we’re not quite there yet. Which is why we’re running the Uncanny Magazine Year Two Kickstarter,” Lynne says.
For Year Two, Uncanny has solicited original short fiction from Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award winning and nominated authors including: Seanan McGuire (October Daye series), Ursula Vernon (Digger), Aliette de Bodard (The House of Shattered Wings), Elizabeth Bear (Karen Memory), Amal El-Mohtar (“The Truth about Owls”), Alyssa Wong (“The Fisher Queen”), Carmen Maria Machado (“The Husband Stitch”), Maria Dahvana Headley (Magonia), Mary Robinette Kowal (Glamourist Histories series), Scott Lynch (Gentlemen Bastards series), Rachel Swirsky (“If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love”), Catherynne M. Valente (Deathless), and Max Gladstone (The Craft Sequence). There will also be numerous slots for unsolicited submissions.
Uncanny Magazine year two plans to showcase original poetry by Sofia Samatar, M Sereno, Isabel Yap, and Sonya Taaffe, and essays by Chris Kluwe, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Jim C. Hines, Sarah Kuhn, and Tansy Rayner Roberts.
Uncanny Magazine Year Two will also feature cover art by Julie Dillon, Galen Dara, and Katy Shuttleworth.
Uncanny Magazine issues are published as eBooks (MOBI, PDF, EPUB) bimonthly on the first Tuesday of that month through all of the major online eBook stores. Each issue contains 3-5 new short stories, 1 reprinted story, 3 poems, 2 nonfiction essays, and 1 interview, at minimum.
Material from half an issue is posted for free on Uncanny’s website (built by Clockpunk Studios) once per month, appearing on the second Tuesday of every month (uncannymagazine.com). Uncanny also produces a monthly podcast with a story, poem, and original interview.
Subscribers and backers will receive the entire double issue a month before online readers.
Lynne and Michael Thomas guide the magazine as Publishers and Editors-in-Chief. Lynne is the former Editor-in-Chief of Apex Magazine (2011-2013) which was nominated for three Hugo Awards during her tenure. She co-edited the Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords with Tara O’Shea, as well as Whedonistas with Deborah Stanish and the Hugo Award-nominated Chicks Dig Comics with Sigrid Ellis. She co-moderates the two-time Hugo Award-winning SF Squeecast and contributes to the Hugo Award-nominated Doctor Who: Verity! podcast.
Michael is a two-time Hugo Award nominee as the former Managing Editor of Apex Magazine (2012-2013). He also co-edited the Hugo-nominated Queers Dig Time Lords with Sigrid Ellis and Glitter & Mayhem with John Klima and Lynne M. Thomas. He also has worked as an Associate Editor on numerous books at Mad Norwegian Press, including Chicks Dig Time Lords and Chicks Dig Comics. He is the moderator for Down & Safe: A Blake’s 7 Podcast.
Michi Trota is Uncanny’s Managing Editor. She is a writer, editor, speaker, communications manager, and community organizer in Chicago, IL. Michi writes about geek culture and fandom, focusing primarily on issues of diversity and representation, on her blog, Geek Melange. She was a featured essayist in Invisible: An Anthology of Representation in SF/F (edited by Jim C. Hines) and is a professional editor with fifteen years of experience in publishing and communications.
Deborah Stanish conducts Uncanny’s author interviews. She co-edited the Hugo-nominated Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who with L.M. Myles and Whedonistas with Lynne M. Thomas, and is a founding member and the moderator of the Doctor Who: Verity! podcast.
Uncanny’s podcast is edited and produced by Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky. Erika is a founding member and producer of the Doctor Who: Verity! podcast. She also co-hosts The Audio Guide to Babylon 5 and is a frequent panelist on The Incomparable. Steven is one of the three hosts of the popular Doctor Who podcast Radio Free Skaro, as well as a co-host of another Doctor Who podcast called The Memory Cheats.
Amal El-Mohtar is the Uncanny Magazine podcast narrator. Amal is the Nebula-nominated author of The Honey Month, a collection of poetry and prose written to the taste of twenty-eight different kinds of honey. Her poems have won the Rhysling award thrice and the Richard Jefferies Prize once. Her story “The Truth about Owls” from Kaleidoscope is the winner of the 2015 Locus Award for Best Short Story
For more information, interview requests, or guest blog invitations, please contact Lynne and Michael Thomas at uncanny@uncannymagazine.com.
