The Never-ending FAQ: What happened?

Welcome to this week’s installment of The Never-ending FAQ, the constantly evolving adjunct to our Submission Guidelines. If you have a question you’d like to ask about Stupefying Stories or Rampant Loon Press, feel free to post it as a comment here or to email it to our submissions address. I can’t guarantee we’ll post a public answer, but can promise every question we receive will be read and considered.

Q: What happened? You disappeared for a week.

A: Thanks for noticing. Some personal business came up that turned out to be far more time- and energy-consuming than I expected. Consequently I took an unplanned one-week holiday from social media in general and Stupefying Stories Showcase in particular to deal with it. I’m back now.

Q: On the Submission Guidelines page it says this. It’s May 22. What’s up?

“Our next open submissions window is planned to be from 06/01/2024 to 07/31/2024. However, these dates are subject to revision. Our finalized plans for the next open submissions window will be published on this web page on or about 05/22/2024.”

A: Thanks for reminding me. That’s going to change as of right now. I’m pushing back the planned open reading period to 07/01/2024 to 08/31/2024 and reserving the right to push it back further. Our last open reading period turned out to be an enormous all-consuming black hole that devoured far too much time that would have been better spent on book production. Ergo, I’m postponing the next open reading period and focusing on book production until further notice.

Before we reopen to unsolicited submissions, I must figure out some way to improve our filtering. Fully half the submissions that came in in the last reading period were pure dreck, not worth a first glance much less a full read. As testimony to the power of authorial self-delusion a fiction magazine slush pile has few equals, but there must be a better way for us to find new stories to publish.

Q: What is the position of Stupefying Stories regarding profanity? Does anything go or are some words off-limits?

A: I don’t give a shit.

When we first launched Stupefying Stories and Rampant Loon Press, we made a strong effort to keep the language PG-13, as we had hopes of getting our books into school libraries. That turned out to be a wasted and self-delusional effort on our part. The gatekeepers dedicated to keeping books out of school libraries are a remarkably stalwart lot. Ergo, we’ve given up on trying to get our books into school libraries. If you feel your story requires profanity, go for it.

Be advised, though, that I’ve worked alongside Teamsters, longshoremen, and hardcore bikers, and for some reason some writers feel compelled to prove they can out-swear them all. Still trying to prove they’re the toughest motherfucker in the poetry class, I guess. Loading your story with gratuitous profanity just to be “shocking,” “edgy,” and “tough” rarely works. Mostly it makes you look like your ability to express yourself is stuck in junior high school.

For reference, I was in the audience the night George Carlin got arrested in Milwaukee for doing his “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” bit live and onstage, more than 50 years ago. At the time I thought it was an outrage that he got arrested. Years later, I realized the real outrage that night was that Carlin had lifted the entire bit nearly verbatim from an even older Lenny Bruce routine.

Lenny Bruce died in 1966. If you think you can be “shocking” and “edgy” now by recycling a dead standup comic’s 60-year-old material—well, go for it, if it makes you happy. But don’t expect anyone else to give a flying fuck.

Q: Why is there a photo of a turkey at the top of this column?

A: To set up the next question.

Q: Why did the turkey cross the road?

A: Because it saw and heard me coming in my car and decided to get out of the middle of the road and trot off to the safety of the shoulder.

Q: Why, about 30 seconds later, did the woman in maroon yoga pants step off the curb and start to cross the road, and then stop in the middle of the road and glare at me when I had to stomp on the brakes to avoid hitting her?

A: Because she had her earbuds in and her face buried in her cellphone.

Q: What is the definition of sentience?

A: Sentience is one of those words science fiction writers frequently misuse, especially when talking about aliens or artificial intelligence. Sentience does not mean high intelligence, per se. It means being aware of one’s environment, and being able to make choices and take deliberate actions based on one’s perception of the events and changing conditions in one’s environment.

Q: So from this sequence of events we can infer…?

A: That a turkey has a better claim to being a sentient creature than does a human who is face-down in their cellphone.

This theory probably warrants further experimentation, but it may be difficult to get more turkeys to volunteer to participate in the study. The challenge is to get humans to stop volunteering to participate.