Mythaxis Magazine publishes “speculative fiction without distraction”, seeking original sf, fantasy, horror, and permutations thereof between 1,000 and 7,500 words. You can find submission guidelines (and some editorial observations) at https://mythaxis.co.uk/submissions.html
SQF: How did you become involved with Mythaxis Magazine?
Andrew Leon Hudson: The first editor, Gil Williamson, and I became friends through a book-lovers forum named Palimpsest in the mid-2000s. He had a professional background in software and created the Mythaxis site from the ground up, publishing 21 issues over ten years. I contributed a few stories to the zine, in fact my first “sale” was there, although back then Gil would compensate his contributors with books from his extensive library. My copies of Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun were payment for flash fiction - I think I got the better deal!
Sadly, Gil passed away in 2019, but he asked (before) if I would take over the zine so it could continue without him, and I was proud to do so. It took some time to achieve, transferring the site proved tricky for “internet reasons”, but with the help of a friend (Mythaxis’ tech guru Marty Steer) we untangled that knot and resumed publishing in April 2020. Since then we’ve set about updating the site to a more mobile-friendly platform, as well as opening the zine up to submissions from a wider body of authors. We now plan to release four issues per year.
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a submission and why?
ALH: According to our guidelines we seek four things - “tight plotting, engaging characters, quality of prose, and believable dialogue” - but that’s a bit like saying “we want good stuff”, isn’t it? Instead of trying to pick one of those to discard, I’ll suggest three other things I like to find:
Voice. This isn’t the same as “just” delivering stylish prose or authentic dialogue, it’s about an author having a distinct way of working with words that sets them apart. We all have favourite authors whose style we come to know, but sometimes you encounter a story by someone you’ve never heard of before which already has that in place. That’s always a good feeling.
Difference. It’s easy to say to authors “read what we’ve published to learn what we want”, but I’d much rather be exposed to something unlike what we’ve included before. Please do read past issues, but use them as a jumping off point for sending something new to us.
Authenticity. I’m a firm disbeliever in the adage that authors should only write about what they know. They should be free to look for and explore the unfamiliar as much as the familiar - but the onus is entirely on the author to do the hard work necessary to make what they write authentic. It’s doable, but it takes effort, and if the unfamiliar subject is a different culture or life experience to the author’s own, then the importance of doing them justice is all the higher.
SQF: What most often turns you off to a submission?
ALH: Wry grins. Any author who sends me a story in which someone grins wryly should also include a photo of themself doing the same; first so I’ll know what they think it looks like, and second so I can print it out and pin it to my dartboard.
I don’t actually have a dartboard, but I do have a private spreadsheet in which all stories containing wry grins have a checkmark against them. You’d be surprised at the bar charts.
That’s all true, but more seriously, I’m in the game of looking for narratives. No amount of beautiful writing is going to make it into Mythaxis if there isn’t an actual story going on within the text as well. Be stylish, be experimental, be anything you want, but always be a storyteller, not just a wordsmith.
SQF: What do you look for in the opening paragraph(s)/stanza(s) of a submission?
ALH: A single, short, declarative sentence, an island set apart from the story that follows.
No, wait: that’s something that I absolutely don’t need to see, because it’s become so prevalent in genre short fiction that there must be a hundred thousand How To Write ebooks out there telling everyone that’s the only way to do it. So many submissions start like this, and I often think to myself, What is that tiny little line doing for this thing exactly - other than following the trend? I’ve encountered a few where that first “paragraph” basically paraphrases the story’s title, or gives away what the whole story is about before I read it, in both cases I can’t think of anything more redundant.
For me, there isn’t a particular thing I look for positively in an opening paragraph, at least not at first sight; maybe come the end of a story I’ll look back and think, That really worked, good choice, but when I’m making my decision I’m looking at the whole story, not just the start of it. More common is when an opening fails in some way: early stage typos are a bad sign, first impressions do count generally, so of course the beginning should be given close attention by the author. But trying too hard to deliver a knock-out first sentence that’s going to blow my socks off looks like exactly that: trying too hard.
Opening on a good hook is fine, but not every story needs to signpost itself up front. Sometimes a slow burn start is the right choice. Subtlety works. There is no single way of doing short fiction.
SQF: Many editors list erotica, or sex for sex sake, as hard sells. What are hard sells for your publication?
ALH: Well, we’re not a market for erotica so I don’t anticipate receiving any and haven’t to date. Sex in fiction is like sex in life: nice if it’s good, but there’s a time and a place. I’ve no problem with a sex scene, if it fits into the context. And if it happens in a submission, sure, the same…
However, there are a few other things that are going to struggle to find a place at Mythaxis, and first amongst them (despite our name) is retellings of Greek mythology. We get a lot, especially Persephone and Hades for some reason, and I always have to steel myself to go at one again. We did publish an example in our Spring 2021 issue, so it’s not impossible, but authors might want to consider that the exception which proves the rule has already happened.
Contemporary religious themes are not out of the question, but in my experience that’s a delicate line to walk in spec-fic, and it’s not a topic I have a personal interest in. Self-harm or suicide as a subject is also exceedingly difficult to handle well, though I wouldn’t exclude either because important discussions can be had, and the scope for how any subject can be explored is wider in fantastical fiction than in more realist modes of writing.
Of course, there’s also needlessly extreme content, sometimes the kind of thing you’d imagine would barely warrant listing: bestiality crops up from time to time, please no more. I’m perfectly fine with violence in fiction, but graphic torture and stories that trivially incorporate the killing of children are not going to find a home here.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
ALH: “What genre of story do you wish you saw more of?”
I have a great interest in utopian fiction. There’s a perception that dark, sharp, sexy Dystopia has the monopoly on drama and Utopia is, therefore, the boring, too-nice, wallflower sibling. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Typically, dystopias present a terrible world and show the fight to bring it down, but they rarely hang around for the rebuilding that inevitably has to follow. Utopias offer a different perspective: not necessarily being set in a perfect world, sometimes far from it, their point is to present the challenge of improving our collective lot, moving humanity a step forward, so we can look around, evaluate our new circumstance, and try to move us all forward again.
This kind of generally positive perspective doesn’t eradicate the need for conflict. I have no burning interest in reading The Rough Guide To My Fantastic Future World, but describing how the participants of an exciting, unfamiliar environment overcome their obstacles is far from dull (and often allows just as much potential for critiquing contemporary society as dystopias do).
Send me stimulating utopias!
Thank you, Andrew. We all appreciate your taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
No comments:
Post a Comment