Bewildering Stories

[BenBanned]

"Since its inception in late June, 2002, Bewildering Stories has been intended mainly to encourage new writers, namely those who are not yet “rich and famous.” Its mission is primarily educational, but “BwS” is not a writers’ group.

Bewildering Stories borrows a lot in some ways from an on-line university course: in particular, our feedback to contributors; the biographies and welcome messages; the Challenges; the Critics’ Corner; the on-line schedule; the articles in the Writer’s Craft department; and the Submissions guidelines, which are formulated as a reference work. Our Reviews page represents mostly a permanent forum of critical essays.

"

Bewildering Stories


Not a whole lot of bells and whistles and you wont get paid in greenbacks but I think youd be hardpressed to find a more down to earth zine.
They release a weekly issues with a more selective quartley.
Just curious if we had any readers or contributors here at MobileRead.

[teh603]

By "speculative," do they mean sci-fi, or litfic with a few sci-fi elements?

[BenBanned]

After reading the zine for the past two weeks Speculative seems like a fancy way to say whatever.


From wikipedia:

"Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, weird fiction, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as related static, motion, and virtual arts."

[gmw]

I vote we change from using "Speculative Fiction" to: Unreal Fiction

I think it has a much better ring to it.

[kennyc]

Thanks for this Ben, I must admit after exploring the website, submission guidelines, etc. I'm still a bit Bewildered.

Will continue exploring...

Well after 10 minutes of following links, scrolling around and down interminable pages of html tables with numbers and lots of links to things like "quartery reviews" I've still yet to find an "issue" of the magazine listing the contents or links to sample stories or other content. I still have no idea whether this is only SF or also poetry, non-fiction, reviews, etc.

I think they really need to do some work cleaning and streamlining their website and it's intent cause it is truly Bewildering to me at this point.

But Thank you for posting!

[kennyc]

[QUOTE=BenBanned;2367287]After reading the zine for the past two weeks Speculative seems like a fancy way to say whatever.

...

can you actually read it on line? or are there sample stories or ?

sorry if I'm just being dense.

[kennyc]

Oh Wait! I found one! You have to click the issue number in one of those tables of numbers!

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue499/index.html

[gmw]

They did say it was bewildering.

[kennyc]

Good Name!

[HarryT]

It seems to be getting harder and harder for writers to find a place where they can actually get paid for their work, especially short fiction. In the 1940s and 50s, there were a whole slew of magazines that writers could submit stories to, and get paid a reasonably good word-rate for. These days, the very idea that a writer might expect to be paid seems to be treated with outrage by many readers.

The internet has certainly made distribution of one's work easier, but I'm not personally convinced that it's actually improved the lot of the author.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The internet has certainly made distribution of one's work easier, but I'm not personally convinced that it's actually improved the lot of the author.

That wasn't entirely the internet's doing. A lot of it came from the vanity self-publishers and women pushing romance novels through them. When I was starting to get into creative writing in high school and early college (late '90s), a lot of people were of the opinion that "it costs a lot of money to get pubished."

Edit: And one thing I just noticed in the style guide- block formatting? Really?

/facepalm

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It seems to be getting harder and harder for writers to find a place where they can actually get paid for their work, especially short fiction. In the 1940s and 50s, there were a whole slew of magazines that writers could submit stories to, and get paid a reasonably good word-rate for. These days, the very idea that a writer might expect to be paid seems to be treated with outrage by many readers.

The internet has certainly made distribution of one's work easier, but I'm not personally convinced that it's actually improved the lot of the author.

True across the board. What with blogs and websites posting articles, non-fiction it is bad there too as I've learned during the last year, I'm still learning/relearning about marketing of writing and it's definitely a whole different world than it was 10+ years ago. I'm having a hard time finding publishers for even my (science) articles and creative non-fiction work....at least at this point, still looking, dealing with it, working it though. A few that I've initially thought were good candidates in addition to no pay, wanted ALL RIGHTS. are they friggin' insane or what?

[HarryT]

I'd be interested in knowing if you come across any good sites for science articles, Kenny. I still dabble in that line myself.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'd be interested in knowing if you come across any good sites for science articles, Kenny. I still dabble in that line myself.

Some are very specialized as I'm sure you know, but I'll let you know.

Orion magazine is an interesting science market you probably know about - I've not had any luck there yet. Reasonably high-end. I'll let you know if/as I run across things.....I am trying to keep the writing thing going, as per my other postings here...

[HarryT]

Thanks - I appreciate it.