Thread: Flashing Swords

Flashing Swords is being revived as an annual. It opens for submissions on July 15th. Subs can be sent to editor C. A. Keller at submissions@flashingswords.com

We are looking for sword and sorcery tales and non-fiction about the genre and other matters such as medieval weapons, military history and how it might be adapted to a fantasy setting.

We are paying a cent a word plus a copy of the print edition that the work appears in.

We are also looking for interior black and white illustrations. Covers will be done in house by one of my staff artists.


If this one goes well, I hope to be back to a quarterly publication schedule again.

edit: we will consider reprints.

I'm just the publisher, not the editor. But I ought to be able to answer most questions.

Oooooo a publisher. Cool.

(But you seem so normal?)

Hush. I'm a raving lunatic. Saying nice things about me is sure to ruin my reputation. *wink*

Daverana Enterprises, my main line, finally made it into the black this year after running two years in the red. So I saw my way clear to bring back Flashing Swords. I'm the third owner. The zine has been around for years. My acquisition of the zine was a bit premature for my resources. However, we're finally there.

Congratulations, my man.
Without publishers, where would writers be?

(Not to say you're not all sick evil baby eaters)

hmmm, black and white drawing huh? I think I can provide, if you like my style.

although my current graphic novel features manga frank miller hybrid, I could also do westernized drawing like this one.

I will send those links to C. A. "Neve" and see what she thinks.

Obviously I have arrived =D I'm still gathering my resources but those illustrations look awesome!

so what kinds of things do you guys wanted to be drawn?

As Cuss mentioned: I am the Editor in Chief of Flashing Swords Magazine and we are specificly devoted to publishing quality Sword and Sorcery based prose, poetry and art. We are currently operating on a yearly publishing schedule. Submissions will officially open on the 15th of July.

Contracts will be issued upon the acceptance of any piece for our publication and we operate under non-exclusive anthology rights. Please see our website for other details about Contributor Rights.

For Prose: we will pay 0.01$ a word up to 6,000 words. This means a story that runs over the 6,000 word limit will be capped at 60 USD.

Poetry: we pay a flat rate of $10 USD per poem regardless of length.

Black and White Interior Illustrations: we pay a rate of $10 USD per accepted piece.

A few words about what we are looking for in regard to Prose and Poetry:
There are several sub-genre that we will consider for publication in Flashing Swords Magazine;
Sword and Sorcery
Sword and Planet
Heroic Fantasy
Epic/High Fantasy
Swashbuckling Adventures
Historical Adventures
Related Essays and Articles.
Please see our website for more specific definitions of those categories which are listed in our submission guidelines. http://www.flashingswords.com/writers.php

In regards to Artist submissions: I am currently revamping how the art acceptance system for FSM actually works so please disregard the current guidelines. I will have new guidelines in place well before submissions open in July. I will be updating this thread regularly and would like to thank you for checking us out!

Originally Posted by darknite_johanne

so what kinds of things do you guys wanted to be drawn?

Good Question!

I have an FSM related account over on deviantArt now which I will be using to build up a sort of 'this is what we would like to see' thing through my favourites. http://nevebaci.deviantart.com/

Ideally I'd like to be able to approach individual artists for specific commisions as well as accepting generic S&S related art. In my experience certain stories speak to me so loudly that I feel they warrant an individual visual aid to support them. Style at this point is fairly open although they do need to be in a black and white format. I had a peek at your links and feel you'd be a good match, you have a good sense of movement and compositional balance which are vital when producing art for S&S. I apologize if this doesn't exactly answer your question at this time but I'm still getting things organized.

Okay that's cool. I've seen your faves. and most of them can be done. please feel free to contact me for commissions. okay. I'll wait for updates.

Hello everyone!

I am more than pleased to announce that the rumours ARE true, Flashing Swords Magazine is gearing up to return to publishing quality Fantasy fiction. While Jan and I had originally intended to open submission on the 15th of July I ended up travelling to a couple other cities during the end of June and early July, packing my flat and moving to the Glasgow area on Monday, the 19th of July. This of course means I'll be without reliable Internet for at least 2 weeks, possibly longer while we get settled/ our services switched over. Moving is such a pain in the, well, everywhere really and services take FOREVER to be established because the British excel at creating complicated bureaucratic processes. In the mean time I’m battling with a borrowed hot-spot account just to check my personal e-mails and get these forum/ blog postings up to keep you wonderful people in the loop!

Due to the rather sudden (like signing the lease the preceding Friday sudden) nature of my relocation and the delay (grrr at you BT, grrr I say!) on a secure connection to the Internet, Jan and I have decided to push back the official re-launch of FSM to the first of September. I am using my time off-line to fine tune both the fiction and art submission guidelines and to reaffirm exactly what I want Flashing Swords Magazine to deliver not only to its audience but to its contributors as I have very strong feelings about acting in a professional as well as ethical manner. I want contracts that are fair and favourable to our Authors and Artists. I want the publication process; receipt notices, acceptance/ rejections, queries and editing to have a decent turnaround time while layout and printing have committed deadlines. Above all, I want each contributor to feel that whether their submission makes it into print or not, working with Flashing Swords was not only positive but that they’d want to do it again and again.

So to recap quickly: Flashing Swords Magazine is once again on the rise. Submissions officially open on the 1st of September. On a parting note, it is totally okay if you have already sent a submission in as there was no way to predict this unavoidable disruption or its duration. I’ll be reading them as soon as I can actually get to them on a secure connection.

Your roving feral editor,

C. A. Keller (Neve)