Hi folks! Spring is always a busy time in IF, and this year is no exception:

• Spring Thing 2015 has sprung, with a bounty of works from IF authors new and veteran.
• The 2014 XYZZY Award finalists have been announced; you can vote until April 25, the awards ceremony is on the 26th, and we encourage you to get involved with both!
• Speaking of late April: issue 62 of SPAG will come out the week of April 26th. Expect coverage of the XYZZYs, reviews of ParserComp and Spring Thing, features on translation, IF and music videos, and more! We’re very proud of all our contributors and their work. (Want to join them? Email us! Full submission guidelines will run next issue, but if you have an idea you want to happen, let’s talk and make it happen.)

In the meantime, please check out some of the IF-related reads I’ve enjoyed most over the past month.

Best,
Katherine

Continue reading →

Hello everyone! April’s issue is coming along nicely, and while we’ve got a lot of great content in the works, there is still room for you! We are especially seeking out reviewers for ParserComp, and artists. If this is you, please get in touch. If this isn’t you, get in touch anyway! Submission guidelines are here.

In the meantime, I’d like to kick off a new feature I’m tentatively calling SPAGreads! This will be a monthly feature, between issues, highlighting the best IF-related writing I’ve come across in the interim. Part of SPAG’S mission — the P for Preservation, if you will — is to perpetuate the tradition of IF criticism. It’s particularly important nowadays, as IF is receiving more attention than it has in years, yet attention so diffuse it’s easy to encounter only slivers of it. The bulk of these links will be new, but I’ll also include a section for older pieces worth your time, as part of “preservation” is keeping alive work from the past. Each piece will come with some commentary, as not to be a straight-up linkdump.

If you have a suggestion for a piece you think we should feature, email us! As always, we particularly welcome pieces from outside the mainstream IF press, on undercovered topics or by underrepresented authors. We accept everything from a Serious Longform Piece in the New York Times to a blurt on your blog written mostly in emoji, from the beginnings of IF to a piece so cutting-edge IT HASN’T EVEN BEEN RELEASED YET (good luck pulling that one off). Format is irrelevant, venue is irrelevant; all we care about is that it is worth our readers time.

Best,
Katherine Continue reading →