If you’re like us, you look at the standard NCAA Tournament bracket and think it’s the design for a particularly unimaginative corn maze.
So if you’re looking for a respite from all the basketball-induced craziness, settle back with our March Issue. It’s chock full of updated, alternative, and innovative takes on legend and lore.
Five great stories by Thomas Pluck, Chris Lewis Carter, Zarren Mykhail Kuzma, Rose Williamson, and Tara Isabella Burton.
No bracket required.
We need to talk.
Seriously. Put down the remote. TNT will still be showing The Mentalist reruns when we’re done.
It’s not easy for us to say, but…our novella contest is in trouble. It’s not you. It’s not us. It’s just the way things are. Maybe the guidelines were too involved. Maybe it’s because we’re also doing those Lovecraft and poetry special issues. They’re a lot flashier and don’t require nearly as much typing. We get it.
But last year — the first time we tried novellas — it was magical. We got dozens of submissions, had a strong short list, and published two really great stories. It went so well, we even went back to the novella for the holidays.
This year, we’ve only received eight entries. Some of them have been okay, but they’re not quite what we’re looking for. Most people didn’t read the guidelines. A lot of people forgot our name in the cover letter.
So, we want to make this novella contest work, but there’s only two weeks left. It’s going to take effort. And people sending us novellas.
And, as long as we’re on difficult subjects…to be honest? The sex just hasn’t been that good in a long time either. Does it always have to be in the ass? Every time? What about our needs? We want to make this work, but you need to meet us halfway.
So start going down again. And finish that goddamn novella. Then submit it.
Just because this is Issue 40, don’t think we’re doing anything crazy. It’s not like we’re having a mid-life crisis and running off to far-flung corners of the earth, getting drunk with Dionysus, becoming a master pickpocket, applying for a job as an axe murderer, or possibly doing something deeply inappropriate with a unicorn.*
Nope, we’re doing none of that.
But we are letting a great bunch of writers play around with the concept of archetypes, lore, and legend. Fairy tales and mythology say so much about a culture; how people mess around with them says even more.
It’s like I once heard Patrick Stewart say: our myths define us.
(Then he told me to get the fuck out of his chair.)
With all that in mind, the March Issue of Jersey Devil Press is ready for you to explore.
Or, as Bono once said, back when he was still cool (no really), “This is 40.”
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*Um, again.