Our first issue of 2012 tangles, as everything outside the window’s slowly waking up, with the complications of desire.

In Sofia Samatar’s “The Nazir”, two very different women struggle with being kept from the things they want — or, alternately, the price of getting them; S.E. Gale’s “Chorus of the Dead” mingles regret, desire, and silences into a less-usual story about death; and George Galuschak’s “The Wanting Game” defines a line between want, and sacrifice, and need.

Poetry from Kelly Rose Pflug-Back, W.C. Roberts, N. Marin, and Robert K. Gardner yearns for certainty, and completion, and what was and what could be — and as always, there are the usual book reviews.

We hope you enjoy this quarter’s issue, and if so, please consider dropping something into our tip jar. Ideomancer relies on reader donations to pay its contributors for their excellent fiction and poetry, and even five dollars makes a big difference.

Enjoy the issue, enjoy your spring, and may you get that much closer to the things you uncomplicatedly desire.

Wanted!

Ideomancer is looking for two new junior editors for fiction only. Slush wrangler wannabes should be VERY familiar with our magazine and know the styles of fiction we publish. Our guidelines state: Ideomancer publishes speculative fiction and poetry that explores the edges of ideas; stories that subvert, refute and push the limits. We want unique pieces from authors willing to explore non-traditional narratives and take chances with tone, structure and execution, balance ideas and character, emotion and ruthlessness. We also have an eye for more traditional tales told with excellence.

We are especially interested in non-traditional formats, hyperfiction, and work that explores the boundaries not just of its situation but of the internet-as-page.

In addition to reading slush weekly (usually fewer than eight stories per week), you may be asked to work with a writer to help polish his/her work. Editors also help out with publicity and funding initiatives, occasional organizational duties, and helping to determine the future direction of the magazine.

The position will require a 30-day commitment during an open reading period, at the end of which either of us (you or us) can opt out if we don't feel we're a good fit.

Please contact us via the publisher (at) ideomancer (dot) com address by the end of Saturday, February 18, 2012 if you are interested in giving us a try. Tell us why you are interested in slushing for us in particular, and remember that our current editors' work is not eligible for publication in Ideomancer, nor is this a paying position. We all do this gig out of love.

Thanks, and look forward to your interest!

The Ideomancer Speculative Fiction team

Our final issue for 2011 speaks on a winter topic: connection, and isolation, for the months when we here at Ideomancer headquarters are hemmed in most by the snow and dark, and reach out most to each other for light.

Michael John Grist’s "The Orphan Queen" shows, slantwise, the terribleness of isolation and the terrible bravery it takes to conquer it; Ken Schneyer’s "Neural Net", one of our first pieces of hyperfiction in much too long, echoes through its intertwined structure the ideas of withdrawal, and love, and hiding from the world; and Erica Satifka returns to our pages with "Signs Following", a soft, edged story about faraway places and the things we will do when our ties to both friends and universe are threatened.

Poetry from Mary Turzillo, Brit Mandelo, C.G. Olsen, and David C. Kopaska-Merkel dips from relationships to houses to black holes, all places to be alone together, and as always, the usual book reviews.

We’d also like to note another staff departure: Marsha Sisolak has been a part of Ideomancer since 2002, as a junior editor, then publisher, and then the aesthetic eye behind the art that goes up with every story and poem we publish, and after almost a decade in the small press coal mines, she’s moving on to focus more on her own (excellent!) writing. Thank you, Marsha – you’ll be missed!

As usual, we hope you enjoy this quarter’s issue, and if so, please consider dropping something into our tip jar. Ideomancer relies on reader donations to pay its contributors for their excellent fiction and poetry, and even five dollars makes a big difference.

Enjoy!

Our September 2011 issue picks at the notion of time: the time we have, the time we don’t, and the breaking of all those rules entirely.

Georgina Bruce’s “Convent Geometry” reaches across time and space, through walls, against sickness to bring three people together – to somewhat dire consequences; Ian Donald Keeling’s “Broken” splinters it to reflect one man’s splintered heart; and Jen Volant’s “Jacob and the Jane Riches”, finds what might heal our wounds when time doesn’t do the job.

Poetry from Liz Bourke, David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Kendall Evans, Jacqueline West, and J.C. Runolfson goes back towards the classics, stops off at Mark Twain, and dips forward, into the whole of the universe, and this month’s book reviews cover two books which use historical elements to deadly effect.

We’d like to also take this opportunity to thank our long-time (and founding!) poetry editor, Jaime Lee Moyer, on the occasion of her departure from Ideomancer, and to welcome our new poetry editor, former associate editor Beth Langford, to the department.

We hope you enjoy this quarter’s issue, and if so, please consider dropping something into our tip jar. Ideomancer relies on reader donations to pay its contributors for their excellent fiction and poetry, and even five dollars makes a big difference.

Have a great autumn!

The June 2011 issue of Ideomancer is live, and it's full of summer travels: both physical and of the mind and soul and heart.

Cory Skerry’s "Rendered Down" sets us off to sea, and across the thin line between one world and the next. Alter Reiss’s "A Letter from Northern Niaro" narrates a trip into the country, and the distance grown between the person one is and the person one used to be. Finally, Anatoly Belilovsky’s "Chrestomathy", with the misfiring of a bullet, crosses continents and builds a dizzying and breathtaking new history.

Poetry from repeat contributors Megan Arkenberg, Mike Allen, and W.C. Roberts and first-time contributor Shannon Connor Winward rounds out the issue, taking us out to distant, devastated planets; deep into our own skins; back in time, and forward. And our staff reviewers survey a quartet of modern-style mysteries that cross into the Arthurian and the mimetic, and hop across the Atlantic.

We hope you enjoy this quarter’s issue, and if so, please consider dropping something into our tip jar. Ideomancer relies on reader donations to pay its contributors for their excellent fiction and poetry, and even five dollars makes a big difference.

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Also, this means we're reopened to fiction submissions, although we are going to be closed to poetry submissions for this quarter, reopening in September.

Enjoy!

Spring is springing – slowly – into our back yards and back closets and the backs of our brains alike. So in honour of the best new-old thing that happens all year, our March 2011 issue of Ideomancer has three stories full of slanted spring sunlight; stories light enough to float; stories about beginnings.

Sandra Odell returns to our virtual pages with “Just Be,” a story about a warm afternoon and a simple renewal and just how good that can be. Emily Skaftun’s “Apology for Fish-Dude” starts our feet down a brand new road, and shows how, in some ways, wherever we are we stay the same. Finally, Su-Yee Lin’s “Ascension” takes us, birds and leaves and all, into the sky and sailing off to summertime.

We’re also trying a new-old thing ourselves: a featured poet. Our March featured poet is Mari Ness, and this issue showcases three of her poems – “Grandma and the Puka,” “Nile Song,” and “Soul Street,” as well as an interview on both the art of speculative poetry and her take on the field itself.

All that, as well as a double handful of reviews!

We hope you enjoy this quarter’s issue, and if so, please consider dropping something into our tip jar. Ideomancer relies on reader donations to pay its contributors for their excellent fiction and poetry, and even five dollars makes a big difference.

Until summertime!

Happy new year!

With the end of the year and the beginning of the next come a few traditions, and one of them is critic Rich Horton's year-end roundups of practically every SFF magazine on Earth. He's posted his year-end summary for Ideomancer:

My favorites were LaShawn M. Wanak's "Future Perfect", a woman's look at multiple alternate futures for her and a man she loves; Megan Arkenberg's "The Copperroof War", about the results of an uprising in a vast house; Ilan Lerman's "Saint Stephen Street", about an old man and a young girl in a ruined future; and Sandra Odell's "Afterglow", a short-short, for its unusual depiction of love.

Congrats to all the 2010 authors and poets!

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Back in the present, we're still reading for the March 2011 issue, which is shaping up with such shiny things as a featured poet and the usual reviews and bells and whistles. Send us your best. :)

Ideomancer is in the press a bit this week. So to speak. :)

Skull Salad Reviews has reviewed the December issue, including the poetry, which doesn't always happen with fiction-oriented reviews. Thanks!

Also, csecooney has an interview up at the Black Gate blog about Ideomancer, the process of making our December issue, and some of my personal history with the magazine. It's useful reading for those of you who wonder about how we put together a TOC, why there are so many people involved in this thing anyways, and why we all do this thing.

Happy Saturday!

Here in the northern hemisphere, it's the dark of the year and getting cold fast. The December 2010 issue of Ideomancer is live, and it's a solstice one: stories about, and for, the end of the year and the end — and beginning — of the world.

Becca de la Rosa's "When the Light Left" is a purest solstice story, about darkness and light and dancing. Nadia Bulkin's "Lucky You" breaks the world and then draws us through to the other side; and Stephen Case's "What I Wrote for Andronicus" goes even farther, into death and the afterlife and the end of an afterlife, and through that, into spring.

Our poets this month — Kelly Rose Pflug-Back, WC Roberts, and Liz Bourke — round out the issue with a trio of night flights.

We hope you enjoy this quarter's issue, and if so, please consider dropping something into our tip jar. Ideomancer relies on reader donations to pay its contributors for their excellent fiction and poetry, and even five dollars makes a big difference.

Happy longest night, and we’ll see you in the new year!

Wanted!

Ideomancer is looking for two new junior editors for fiction only. Slush wrangler wannabes should be VERY familiar with our magazine and know the styles of fiction we publish. Our guidelines state: Ideomancer publishes speculative fiction and poetry that explores the edges of ideas; stories that subvert, refute and push the limits. We want unique pieces from authors willing to explore non-traditional narratives and take chances with tone, structure and execution, balance ideas and character, emotion and ruthlessness. We also have an eye for more traditional tales told with excellence.

We are especially interested in non-traditional formats, hyperfiction, and work that explores the boundaries not just of its situation but of the internet-as-page.

In addition to reading slush weekly (usually fewer than eight stories per week), you may be asked to work with a writer to help polish his/her work. Editors also help out with publicity and funding initiatives.

The position will require a 30-day commitment during an open reading period, at the end of which either of us (you or us) can opt out if we don't feel we're a good fit.

Please contact us via the publisher (at) ideomancer (dot) com address by Sunday, November 21, 2010 if you are interested in giving us a try. Tell us why you are interested in slushing for us in particular, and remember that our current editors' work is not eligible for publication in Ideomancer, nor is this a paying position. We all do this gig out of love.

Thanks, and look forward to your interest!

The Ideomancer Speculative Fiction team