Important Notice by the Publisher
It is with great regret that I am announcing the closure of SQ Mag. This final notice has been a difficult decision to make. Our October 2017 notice was an attempt at finding a way forward, but unfortunately we could not get to that compromised point.
SQ Mag, at first called SQ Magazine, was the brainchild of the founding members of IFWG Publishing, and then transferred to IFWG Publishing Australia in 2012, in the digital format that we saw over the ensuing five years. Throughout its life under IFWG Publishing Australia it was edited with great skill and passion by Sophie Yorkston.
SQ Mag was created to add to the inadequate number of quality publications that were devoted to helping writers (particularly underrepresented writers) get a leg up in the marketplace, in part by trying our best to attract excellent ‘named’ authors to capture readership. It was never meant to be a major money spinner, and I (and we, the publishing house) believe it did the job wonderfully and sustainably. We have an amazing list of authors published in our 31 editions and quite a few were only starting when they published with us. Recognisable names that we bought stories from include Laird Barron, Allan Baxter, Tang Fei, Jay Lake, Ken Liu, Gary McMahon, Emma Newman,Cat Rambo, Mike Resnick, Deborah Sheldon, Angela Slatter, Cat Sparks, Kaaron Warren, and Sean Williams, to name a few. We are proud of this, and our book reviews and articles, and the many awards that a number of our stories had won.
The two IFWG book imprints based in Melbourne Australia have grown considerably, and the taking on of different geographic distributors (and the continued transition to other distributors) has consumed our time and resources considerably. We can’t give SQ Mag the focus it deserves nor can we invest finances into the project like we did in the past. It has come to the point that running SQ Mag was just too much for us.
Sophie has been a bastion of strength and durability for the ezine, and we relied heavily on her for the entire life of the ezine – and it was not surprising that after all of this time and the way life changes that it became unmanageable for her. We nearly handed the reins of editorship to another capable editor, but the burden of running a magazine on the goodwill of those who make it has become too much. So SQ Mag retires having had one, amazing (and award-winning) editor.
We will leave SQ Mag ‘live’ on the Internet for as long as we can, providing readers free access to an excellent collection of adult speculative short fiction. We will continue to keep the first four volumes of Star Quake: the Best of SQ Mag in print and digital formats, and you never know, we may one day publish a ‘Best of’ for the period that the past anthologies didn’t cover. Either way, we would encourage you to buy the Star Quake titles as it is the sure way to make sure you have access to the best of SQ Mag forever.
We would like to especially thank the readers and contributors to SQ Mag over the years, and sincere apologies to authors who may have submitted at the cusp of our long hiatus leading to this decision. We did enjoy the ride and we hope you have as well.
Gerry Huntman
Managing Director, SQ Mag Pty Ltd
trading as IFWG Publishing Australia
Notice: Structural Changes to SQ Mag
Some of you may have noticed a hiatus of activity over recent months – this is unfortunate but unavoidable. Between changed circumstances for the editor, growth that we are not wholly set up for, and distraction for IFWG Publishing Australia (SQ Mag’s parent publisher), the day-to-day management has languished.
We are regathering our resources and realised, during this process, that we need to make changes to ensure we can continue to provide quality fiction and related articles, and of a standard everyone is now expecting.
Consequently, the following changes will take place immediately:
- SQ Mag will now be published 3 times a year – February, June and October. For this year, we will publish one edition on 30 November.
- We have closed the pipeline to all submissions, but we will be reopening them soon, once we catch our breath with all the changes listed in this notice.
- We will continue to have a themed edition – the next themed edition will be announced soon.
- Each edition will consist of 8 or 9 short fiction pieces, representing each of the recognised ‘genres’ of speculative fiction: horror, fantasy and science fiction, and up to 4 pieces of non-fiction, often book reviews, but not limited to them. We will continue to pay US1c per word for unsolicited fiction with no ceiling (other than the word ceiling for submissions), until further notice. Our intention is to grow this some time in the future.
- We will no longer be seeking stories longer than 7,500 words (possibly with a small flexibility), and we will not be seeking stories intended for serialisation (although we may solicit longer pieces). Those currently under consideration will still be considered but will be the last unsolicited.
- We will no longer be running the Story Quest Short Story Contest.
- We will continue to solicit established authors for pieces to be published in the ezine, as part of our belief that this will help attract readers who can discover our less-known authors’ pieces.
- We will be restructuring our staffing arrangements, looking to fill associate editor positions and likely more first readers.
Again, more will be revealed at a later date.
We apologise for the inactivity and some of the changes that will disappoint some of you, but our intention is always focused on sustainability and applicability of our ezine.
Gerry Huntman
Managing Director, IFWG Publishing Australia
Publisher, SQ Mag
Edition 31: Notes from the Editor
There’s a feeling of marvel that overtakes you when looking at the world from above, that abstract feeling when you can look at the world and see how small the Earth is in the grand scheme of things. In the space of a day, you can travel almost from one end of the globe to the other. There’s so much more green, more life-giving growth, than you think when you picture the street you walk, or the road you drive. When those growing components make one unified whole.
A lot of what is personal also creeps into that idea of living, growing. But also a dark side to living; overgrowths, crowding out the other. When we conceptualised the theme for the 2016 Story Quest Competition, I was picturing it in a more positive frame. But the varied nature of human experience means for every expression, you can have many more interpretations. So, it was with surprise that we saw as many dark twisted stories, as evolving, hopeful tales. What you’ll find herein are the best of that contest, plus a few extras from our regular submissions, to fill a whole SQ volume.
Old Growth by J. Ashley-Smith won the competition this year, with a fairly bleak narrative about human disconnection, never fitting in. Second place winner Jamie Lackey took a different direction, with a journey of growing to fit your intended role in the universe, in Of Dreaming and Destiny. Read the rest of this entry
Edition 31: Old Growth by J. Ashley Smith
Winner of the 2016 Story Quest Contest, Old Growth is a story of societal disconnection, desperation. I am sure you will see why this twisted piece grew on the judges. – SY
“Look, Dad,” says Mika from the back. “Look at the faces!”
Scott adjusts the rear-view mirror. The last he checked, Mika was slumped in a chaos of Lego, two minifigures squabbling inches from his face. Now the boy is fully upright, forehead pressed to the window.
“What do you mean? What faces?”
“In the trees,” says the boy. “Bubbly heads poking out of the bark. Look, Dad, can you see?”
“What’re you talking about, retard?” Ashley is scooched way down in the passenger seat, semi-foetal with her toes on the glovebox. Scott would think she was asleep if it weren’t for the dance of thumbs over the screen of her phone.
“They’re probably galls,” says Scott. “Some trees grow them in response to bacteria, insects, that sort of thing. It’s a kind of symbiosis: the trees grow galls to protect themselves, but the galls also protect the wasps, or the greenfly or whatever, by drawing them in, growing around them.”
Edition 31: Of Dreaming and Destiny by Jamie Lackey
Altantsetseg is having her dream, pointing her toward her destiny. However, it won’t be quite as simple as that. Jamie Lackey’s submission to the Story Quest Contest came in second place with her charming coming of age fantasy. – SY
Altantsetseg offered Batbayar a winter-shriveled carrot, and the gelding’s velvety lips tickled her palm. He butted his forehead into her chest as he crunched his snack, and she scratched behind his ears.
Her own stomach rumbled. “My dreaming starts at sundown,” she explained. “I’m fasting.”
Batbayar whickered and flicked his ears.
“Of course I’m nervous,” Altansetseg said. “What if I see myself with a dozen wailing children instead of leading our warriors? Or what if I don’t see anything at all?” Snow crunched beneath her fur-lined boots as she shifted her weight, and the exposed tips of the tall grass hissed as a cold wind gusted. “I should go. Wish me luck.”
She slipped into her yurt just as her family finished their evening meal. The scent of roasted mutton lingered in the air.
Her father and brother left to build her snow-bed, and Altantsetseg stripped. Goosebumps raced along her bare skin.
Edition 31: Book Review: Eyes on You by Steven Jenkins
Reviewed by Mysti Parker
For this issue, I felt like reading something spooky, so I found this ghost story via a BookBub feature and thought it sounded like my kind of thing. Anyone who knows me can tell you I love my “ghosty shows” on TV such as A Haunting and Paranormal Witness. Eyes on You has that kind of feel, which does well for an hour-long TV episode, but unfortunately doesn’t adapt quite as well in book form.
Set in the busy city of Swansea in southern Wales, the story begins with a teenager, Matthew, hearing about his father’s untimely death. The next chapter skips ahead several years to find Matt and his girlfriend Aimee moving in to their first flat. Immediately, odd things begin happening that Matt promptly dismisses as coincidences and accidents. Aimee suspects these things are paranormal in nature, and of course, she’s right. They seek help from a psychic, and all is well for a while.
Edition 31: Pevel Was Here by Michael Stroh
Where do you go when the world not so quietly dies? Michael Stroh’s exploration of a dying world and metaphorical growth netted him third place in the 2016 Story Quest Contest. – SY
The gull watches Pevel with tired eyes and Pevel watches it back.
“Hello there,” Pevel says.
The gull hops a little closer along the blackened phone pole. Lets out a meager squawk and cocks its head suspiciously. The gull is a scrawny, dusty thing with bent feathers and patches of gray flesh laid bare by harsh winds, maybe worse. The bird is a sorry sight, but still Pevel smiles.
“Do you know what that means, my dear?” he says. “Means we’re getting close. Unless this poor fellow’s far from home.” He watches the dust roll over the distant ground as if pushed by giant unseen hands. “Like us.”
Pevel reaches out his hand and the gull blinks, hops a little closer. Pevel reaches into his coat and pulls out the folded, glossy paper. Unfolds it, holds it up so the bird can see.
“Have you seen this place?” he says. “Are we close?”
The gull looks at the paper, blinks. Pevel folds it up again neatly and tucks it away. He unzips his pack and pulls out the old canteen, tilts it back, lets his tongue catch a few drops and puts the lid back on. The gull hops closer.
Edition 31: A Thousand Million Small Things by Eleanor Whitworth
Meringue is ready to move on, but her bot-tinker partner Chris hasn’t quite reached the same decision. A relationship breakdown in space. – SY
Merophie Jenkins hated the serum jabs. The weekly fix just never sat right, binding the body together when all it wanted to do was break apart. Ever since her first one as a child the side-effects had worsened, despite the Corp’s claims of continual improvement.
She stood on the street swallowing nausea and distracting herself by staring up at the affected apartment block. It was completely a-roll. The molecules of the external walls phased from ground to roof in fat horizontal waves. She squinted to see through the shifting particles and was surprised to find a tenant on the first floor. He was busy doing the Corp’s ridiculous solidity-inducing exercises, jumping up and down and flinging his arms about with such earnestness that she, too, almost believed the ruse. The nausea built to a high and she bent over and vomited a paltry splatter of sick onto the rubble-edged pavement. A bike-lender on the other side of the street grinned at her in sympathy, spreading his arms in front of his three functioning machines. She shook her head. It was always best to walk off a serum jab.
Edition 31: My Son the Afterbirth by Craig Stewart
Travis is deeply unsatisfied with what his life with Doug has become, and yet Doug is increasingly insistent on becoming a family. This deeply disturbing piece is a finalist from the 2016 Story Quest Contest. – SY
He walked in the door that day with a handful of tulips and a grin to match. They were my favourite flowers and he knew it. He wanted something. That schoolboy mischief living behind his smile was no coincidence.
I put my trashy romance novel to rest and rose from the squishy comfort of the love seat to greet him and receive his offering. I took them, smelled them and planted them into a vase, all the while keeping my trepidation safely tucked away where he couldn’t see.
“Thanks, they’re great,” I assured him. “Is there a reason for your sweetness today?”
He was still a little out of breath and smelled hot from his bike ride home. I liked that. I liked that a lot.
Before he answered me, he brought his lips to mine for a quick meet and greet. They met and then parted, but not before a few of his laboured breaths titillated my lips and neck. I liked that too.
“You’re reason enough.” Doug was certainly a romantic man, the kind of man who would earnestly tilt his head and swoon over a mass-produced card from the dollar store about the healing power of kindness.
I, on the other hand, was not that kind of man. Not that I didn’t have my own weaknesses, sentimentality just wasn’t one of them.
SQ Mag 