Neil Clarke makes a pretty big announcement in his editorial this issue. It’s time to give up the day job. My family and I are trying to work out how to make that happen, but we need help to do so. If you are already subscribing to Clarkesworld or Forever, then thank you, that’s keeping the option on the table. If you haven’t been subscribing, now’s the time that would make the biggest difference to the future of this magazine….

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Neil Clarke uses his editorial this issue to announce the 2015 Reader’s Poll and Contest. Vote for your favorite Clarkesworld story and cover art, and you could win one of three copies of Clarkesworld: Year Eight (publishing this month). Voting is open now through February 23rd, and the results will be announced in the March issue. Cast your votes here! Issue #112 of Clarkesworld has four new stories by Robert Reed, E. Catherine Tobler, Rich Larson, and Bao Shu, and two…

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Neil Clarke’s editorial this issue includes some discussion of his long-term goals, a glimpse at his introduction to the upcoming Best Science Fiction of the Year, and the news that he’s also accepted a position as an interim editor of the SFWA Bulletin. How do we shift the discussion of short fiction magazines from the goals of just merely surviving to growing into a thriving market? Yes, as the magazine editor, I have a vested interest in that path to financial…

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Mark Cole’s nonfiction article “You Wouldn’t Be Reading This If It Weren’t For Buck Rogers,” in the latest issue of Clarkesworld, is a fond look back at one of the most important characters in the history of science fiction, and the famous comic strip he spawned. Buck got his start in a singularly dull novelette by Philip Nowlan, “Armageddon—2419 AD,” in the August 1928 Amazing Stories (its cover looks so much like the classic images of Buck that no one…

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Neil Clarke’s editorial in the latest issue of Clarkesworld (a sequel of sorts to last issue’s editorial, “The Sad Truth About Short Fiction Reviews“) is titled “The Sad Truth About Short Fiction Magazines.” Did you know that there are only three genre fiction magazines that completely support themselves from the revenue they generate? These are Analog, Asimov’s, and the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, collectively known as the Big Three. Others, like Tor.com and Subterranean (now closed), are supported…

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Neil Clarke’s editorial in the latest issue of Clarkesworld is entitled “The Sad Truth About Short Fiction Reviews.” The sad truth about short fiction reviews is that the overwhelming majority of them have little-to-no impact on readership. After monitoring the incoming traffic for the online version of this magazine for nine years, I can say that the typical review has a statistically insignificant impact on the readership of a story or issue. The only notable exception to this has been…

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Mark Cole’s article in the latest issue of Clarkesworld is on a topic near and dear to us old-time SF fans: the influence (for good and ill) of the legendary John W. Campbell. In September of 1959, Jason Howley walked into the Golden Casino in Reno, Nevada, carrying a small, black, plastic box. Within a matter of minutes, he’d won over three hundred thousand dollars. When the device was opened up by investigators, they found nothing in it but a…

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In his editorial this issue, Editor-in-Chief Neil Clarke recalls the birth of the magazine at Readercon: Our ninth anniversary will occur in October, but the magazine was born at Readercon. At the Friday night Meet the Pros(e) party, Sean Wallace and I got into a long discussion about online magazines spurred on by SciFiction’s recent closure. [SciFiction was the Sci Fi channel’s online magazine and its demise was a huge blow to the perceived credibility of the medium.] That night,…

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So much news from Clarkesworld this month. The big news is that it is now accepting fiction up to 16,000 words — great news for those of us who enjoy longer stories. Its rates have increased as well: it’s now paying 10¢ per word for the first 5,000 words, and 8¢ for each word over 5,000. And at the Nebulas last weekend, I met editor Neil Clarke and learned he had no less than three stories he’d edited up last…

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