Stupefying Stories Lives!

I say this because it seems Duotrope has pronounced us dead again. This doesn’t bother me a great deal: the people who follow Duotrope don’t appear to be folks who actually buy and read fiction, but rather mostly writers seeking editors who will read and buy their fiction.

So to be very clear on this point right up front: we are not reading unsolicited submissions at this time. We’re still cleaning up the wreckage left behind by our 2019 open reading period.

I’m also just slightly irked that they don’t consider STUPEFYING STORIES PRESENTS to be proof that we’re still alive and  publishing—admittedly it’s not the strongest proof, but it’s proof nonetheless—but then we went through the same problem with them when we were doing SHOWCASE as a webzine. More than 170 new stories published (as well as dozens of original novels), but because we were putting them online and not putting them out in books with the Stupefying Stories logo on the cover, it didn’t count.

Sigh. Shrug. Move on.

I’ll concede that the events of the past ten weeks have been incredibly disruptive to us, as they have been to everyone else all over the world, but they weren’t a knockout blow. When we released SSP #1 three months ago we had great things planned and in the pipeline for continuing the STUPEFYING STORIES PRESENTS line, and we still have those plans and projects in place: we just had to throttle back for a bit, while waiting to see exactly what COVID 19 meant for us.

Well, now we know. And knowing this, we can move forward again.

So first up, watch for STUPEFYING STORIES PRESENTS #2, releasing June 1st. Behind it in the pipeline is STUPEFYING STORIES #23, which has assumed nearly The Last Dangerous Visions proportions but is now moving forward towards a June 15th release date.

And after that: well, keep watching for the new StupefyingStories.com web page, which I’m told will be going live Real Soon Now and will fix all the problems we’re currently having with this blogspot site and with the domain forwarding failing from time to time.

Upward and onward,
Bruce Bethke