In light of Substack’s recent “we ❤️ Nazis” announcement, we’ll be ending our newsletter there, effective December 31, 2023. All subscribers will be moved over to our regular, boring mailing list, hosted via ConvertKit, so as to be kept in the loop about upcoming anthologies and submission calls and what-not. Truthfully, we weren’t much of a newsletter, so we doubt anyone will notice much of a change.
We will also be deactivating our Twitter account for the same reason. You can find us on Bluesky and Instagram, should you want social media alternatives.* And, of course, this here website won’t be going anywhere.
With the enshittification of fucking everything making online existence a minefield of terrible choices and compromises, it’s understandably difficult—and maybe purposely so—to figure out where to draw a line in the sand. Ours seems to be supporting institutions that are actively courting white supremacists and COVID misinformation peddlers. The world may be devolving to a point where fascist shitweasels and science-hating virus-fellators are springing up damn near everywhere, but that doesn’t mean you have to open the fucking door to them.
That we are a smaller, younger, and more nimble press without a financial stake in either platform certainly makes things easier, and we understand not everyone is in the same boat. We do hope, however, that, with the introspection that comes parceled with a new year, you take the time to consider who you’re actually supporting with your actions.
In other, less soapbox-y news, our editor, Eirik Gumeny, has some medical shit to deal with the first few weeks of February, so Year Two likely won’t start in earnest until March. We’ll still be working behind-the-scenes between now and then to get things ready, so, hopefully, we can hit the ground running.
If you’ve got any thoughts on what did or didn’t work in Year One, or you’d like to volunteer in some capacity in Year Two, drop us a line at CarnivalAtomic [at] gmail [dot] com. We would specifically like to add some slush readers so that Eirik’s opinion isn’t the only one shaping our books.
*While Bluesky and Instagram certainly aren’t without issue, both at least make an attempt, however questionable, at keeping the worst people off their platforms. That seems to be the best one can hope for these days.
The tl;dr
Nazis are bad, and here’s where to find us going forward: