Hit the Goal and the First Stretch Goal…

All in less than 24 hours. That’s a new record for us.

Thank you, everyone, for the support of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, and of all the authors who publish in it. Means a lot to me and all of us at Pulphouse. So thanks!!

And if you haven’t had a chance yet to check it out, some really nifty stuff and great reading available. Pulphouse Subscription Drive on Kickstarter.

A couple questions this morning on the workshop and how to submit to Pulphouse Fiction Magazine.

Pulphouse Fiction Magazine is not open for submissions and never will be. I am far, far too old, have too much writing to do, and have no desire to ever read slush again. However, I am always open to finding new stories.

When I started this new incarnation of the magazine two years ago, I knew it would be darned near impossible to find enough Pulphouse stories. So I decided to also do reprints, to bring to a modern audience some of the classic writing now lost to time.

But what is a Pulphouse story? In general it is high quality and has attitude of one form or another. Those of you who rewrite your stories down to mush to make them perfect will never sell to Pulphouse. Why? Because Pulphouse stories have to be different. No magazine ever buys sameness, but Pulphouse shudders at sameness and polishing a story creates sameness.

So how do I find new and original Pulphouse stories? Do I have a stable of writers I go to? Sort of, but not that many to be honest. And I am reprinting Kent Patterson stories every issue until I get to all of them. (He died in the early 1990s and had twenty or so stories, all Pulphouse style. It was how Kent’s brain worked.)

But most of every issue is not the few regulars. So how do I get all those stories?

First off, I get a number from the anthology workshop in February here in Las Vegas. About fifty professional writers write stories for six different anthologies and I manage to get Pulphouse stories that either don’t fit the anthology they were written for, or that didn’t hit the editor tastes. In essence, I have over 250 high quality stories I get to pick from. (I don’t get all the stories I want, but the ones I don’t get that I want I can then reprint after the other editor publishes it and the writer gets two checks.)

I have been lucky to create some regulars from that workshop with Annie Reed’s wonderful stories and Robert Jeschonek’s off-the-wall tales.

I also get to read stories regularly now in workshops, the mentor program, and The Great Challenge. When I spot a Pulphouse story, I tell the writer they should first try to sell it to Asimov’s or the mystery markets, but if no luck, I would love it for Pulphouse. (Why do I tell them to try the big markets first? Because I am there to help the writers and Pulphouse is not yet as big as Asimov’s. So I get a few stories that way.)

So this workshop that is offered only through the Kickstarter on how to write a Pulphouse story will give me another chance to find a few. But that is not the reason for the workshop. The reason is that if you can learn how to write stories that are different, high quality, and have attitude, you will sell a lot more to the major magazines and get more readers indie as well.

Because to write a Pulphouse story, you have to be a the top of your game in craft and be off center and different in idea. And if you can write Pulphouse, you can write for any anthology or market because you will be that good.

Again, thank you everyone for the support of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. It is just wonderful to have it back, healthy, and going forward into more years.

Check out the Kickstarter here…