Red-fan Parrot aka Hawk-headed Parrot (Deroptyus accipitrinus), family Psittacidae, Brazil
photograph by Jarbas Mattos
Such a memorable night drawing with Julián Nariño at the same desk! Let's start with Hamsters and Hula Hoops!
Vibrant red accents for this kimono depicting spiderweb with fallen mochi-like flowers (Kôrin plum blossoms) and maple leaves. Haori has a mesmerizing suminagashi (floating ink marbling) with gold accents, it's so pretty!
OP paired this kimono with a cherry blossoms obi, but I personally don't feel like those two belongs together? Anyway, this kimono is lined so intented for colder months, but spiderweb motif will always hint at summer for me :)
It's a failed print of Megatron. There're too many details and I had too small copper plate and little experience for something like that, but printmaking takes a lot of time and physical work with unpredictable result, it's too pity not to post it. :")
so I’m looking at short story publishers (fantasy)
- Tor, cream of the crop. 25 cents a word. Stories can be read for free (YES). Slowish response time at ~3 months. Prefer under 12k, absolute maximum is 17.5k. Don’t bother if it’s not highly professional quality. SFWA qualifying.
- Crossed Genres. 6 cents a word. Different theme each month (this month’s is “failure”). Submissions must combine either sci-fi or fantasy with the theme. Response time 1 month. 1k-6k, no exceptions. SFWA qualifying.
- Long Hidden, anthology from CG. 6 cents a word. 2k-8k, no exceptions. Must take place before 1935. Protagonist(s) must be under 18 and marginalized in their time and place. Must be sci-fi/fantasy/horror. Deadline 30 April. Response by 1 October.
- Queers Destroy Science Fiction. Sci-fi only right now, author must identify as queer (gay, lesbian, bi, ace, pan, trans, genderfluid, etc, just not cishet). 7.5k max. Deadline 15 February. Responses by 1 March. You can submit one flash fiction and one short story at the same time. (My network blocks the Lightspeed site for some reason, so I can’t get all the submission details. >_>) Probably SFWA qualifying?
- Women in Practical Armor. 6 cents a word. 2k-5k. Must be about 1) a female warrior who 2) is already empowered and 3) wears sensible armour. Deadline 1 April. Response within three months.
- Fiction Vortex. $10 per story, with $20 and $30 for editor’s and readers’ choice stories (hoping to improve). Speculative fiction only. Imaginative but non-florid stories. 7.5k maximum, preference for 5k and under. (I kind of want to support them on general principle.)
- Urban Fantasy Magazine. 6 cents a word. 8k max, under 4k preferred. Must be urban fantasy (aka, the modern world, doesn’t need to be a literal city).
- Nightmare. 6 cents a word. 1.5-7.5k, preference for under 5k. Horror and dark fantasy. Response time up to two weeks. SFWA and HWA qualifying.
- Apex Magazine. 6 cents a word. 7.5k max, no exceptions. Dark sci-fi/fantasy/horror. SFWA qualifying.
- Asimov’s Science Fiction. 8-10 cents a word. 20k max, 1k minimum. Sci-fi; borderline fantasy is ok, but not S&S. Prefer character focused. Response time 5 weeks; query at 3 months. SFWA qualifying, ofc.
- Buzzy Mag. 10 cents a word. 10k max. Should be acceptable for anyone 15+. Response time 6-8 weeks. SFWA qualifying.
- Strange Horizons. 8 cents a word. Speculative fiction. 10k max, prefers under 5k. Response time 40 days. Particularly interested in diverse perspectives, nuanced approahces to political issues, and hypertexts. SFWA qualifying.
- Fantasy and Science Fiction. 7-12 cents a word. Speculative fiction, preference for character focus, would like more science-fiction or humour. 25k maximum. Prefers Courier. Response time 15 days.
- Scigentasy. 3 cents a word. .5-5k. Science-fiction and fantasy, progressive/feminist emphasis. Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. 15 cents a word. 3k maximum. Any sci-fi/fantasy, they like a literary bent. (psst, steinbecks!) They also like to see both traditional and experimental approaches. Response time two weeks.
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies. 6 cents a word. 10k maximum. Fantasy in secondary worlds only (it can be Earth, but drastically different—alternate history or whatever). Character focus, prefer styles that are lush yet clear, limited first or third person narration. Response time usually 2-4 weeks, can be 5-7 weeks. SFWA qualifying.
- Clarkesworld. 10 cents a word up to 4000, 7 afterwards. 1-8k, preferred is 4k. Science-fiction and fantasy. Needs to be well-written and convenient to read on-screen. Appreciates rigour. No talking cats. Response time 2 days. SFWA qualifying.
- Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. 6 cents a word. Any length. Science-fiction and fantasy (along with fantastic horror). Good world-building and characterization. Clear straightforward prose. Response time three months. Yes, OSC is editor-in-chief. SFWA qualifying.
- Interzone. Sub-pro rates if anything (but highly respected). 10k max. Short cover letter. Science-fiction and fantasy.
Whenever I see a post like this, I feel like I have to tell people about the Submission Grinder. I just did a search on it and it came up with 135 markets that pay for fantasy short stories. You can search by genre, pay rate, length of story they accept, etc, and it’s constantly being updated, which a post like this can’t be, and you can also use it to keep track of what you’ve sent where and when, and since a lot of people use it for this purpose it’s got a lot of good data about response times and so on. If you are trying to sell fiction or poetry on the regular, it is such a useful tool and I encourage everyone to use it.
The server had less than 10 players so we were caught very much off guard.
Then again, I suppose we were in Grand Plains.
I was the striped raptor btw
Fossilas: crinoid stems and stars including a 6 pointed pentacrites and a pyritised ammonte
Plague doctors, beasts with too-human eyes that visit places that carry a heavy scent of carrion and disease. They accidentally spread more plague as their pycnofibers are excellent for tics to cling on. They seem immune to the disease itself.
It's said that the reason they smell like flowers is because they supplement their diets with them and rub their beaks with petals, for an unknown yet reason. Some argue its to attract mates, others that some flowers have antibacterial properties
A bride recently asked me to make her a necklace for her wedding that looked like a fancy throat slash. This was a really fun project.
