I received a lot of very good comments my previous post about Whispering Spirits.

I find myself agreeing with those who said that I was imposing too many limits upon myself, and expecting others to follow suit.  Writing should not be about limits.  By fencing myself in with my refusal to sell shorts to paying markets that Dagstine has sold to and continues to sell to, I have created my own little ghetto.

It might be a better ghetto than Dagstine’s (after all, I am primarily a novelist), but it remains a ghetto.

Just as I took my reprints to Associated Content, despite (or because of)  Nicky’s presence there, I intend to feel free to sub my material to those paying markets that Dagstine sells to.  I might even sub to the same anthology markets that Philbin does, but only if they are paying markets.

I say, “Let’s not fence ourselves in.  Let’s show those markets how it is done.”

And even more to the point, let’s not condemn the publishers and editors for buying Dagstine’s stories.  They are not the target.  Instead, let’s sub stories to those paying markets and strut our stuff.

Whispering Spirits is run by Diana Cacy Hawkins.

I don’t know her well.  But she has been kind enough to run stuff about me on her board.

I have known for months that she had published works by Dagstine, and I tried to ignore it.

Rusty’s post forced me to take a long hard look at it.

I can’t and won’t change my stance about not subbing material to a magazine that has stories in it by Dagstine.  It would be a violation of my personal ethics.  In the end, it is really irrelevant since I rarely write short fiction.  I have only written a single short story in the past two years.

Dagstine singled me out for abuse long before I even knew that he existed.

Publishing Dagstine does not make Diana a bad person.  I’m not going to fault her here, except to say that I think she could have found far better writers than he is.

I don’t have a clear course of action here.

My initial reaction at this point is to lunge into kamikaze mode and have every thing concerning me and mine removed from her board.  But I’m going to try and restrain myself.

I’m going to take a day and think about it.

I’ve just been commissioned by Whispering Spirits’ editor, Diana Cacy Hawkins, for a 5th short story run, and this time for a special-themed  Halloween issue. Whispering Spirits is published semi-annually, and its content is based around ghost stories, the supernatural, and the occult.  It’ll be available as a free PDF.

WHISPERING SPIRITS SPECIAL

HALLOWEEN EDITION

Whispering Spirits

 http://www.whisperingghosts.com/

Previous issues have featured such names as Angeline Hawkes, Alexis Child, G.W. Thomas, Kristine Ong Muslim, and Lanaia Lee. 

Other New Entries: “Magazines”

The following acceptance was last minute…  Whispering Spirits invited me to be Feature Author for their April 2008 edition.  This would be my fourth acceptance with them in total.  Edited by Diana Cacy Hawkins, the semi-annual webzine has become a talented showcase of ghost stories, dark poetry, and tales of the supernatural.  My story is available as a PDF download, and this edition contains an extra ten pages worth of juicy fiction.

Whispering Spirits: April 2008, Issue #18

http://whisperingspirits.dragynspice.com/issue.html

Featuring Fiction & Poetry by: Lawrence Dagstine, Wayne Summers, G.W. Thomas, Mary C. White, Kristine Ong Muslim, and Lanaia Lee.

Other New Entries: “Magazine Credits”

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In other news, I’ll also be appearing in four more spec-fic anthologies between this year and next (about the first two, for now).  One, which has already found a publisher is, SATIRICA: An Anthology of Satirical Speculative Fiction.  When I get more details, publishing information, lineups, stuff like that, I’ll be sure to post it.  Next, another SF anthology worth reserving, and edited by Darlene Oakley, would be: EISODOS STATION and Other Adventures.

DEMO COVER BELOW:

Coming Soon…

Other New Entries: “Books & Anthos”