In Which Your Humble Editors Are Interviewed

I was so caught up in getting Issue 6 finished that I totally forgot that Ms. Wise and I have an interview coming out today. How’s that for unintended timing?

Jim Harrington hosts a blog in which he presents six questions to a variety of different editors. If you are a writer, it’s well worth perusing his site to glean insight into the inner workings of editors as they consider submissions. If you’re a reader, you may find it interesting as well, to learn a bit about what goes into that next great story you read.

http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/2013/08/six-questions-for-bernie-mojzes-and-ac.html?m=1

End Construction

Well, this is it. The site is finished. We’ve gotten the last two issues imported to the new site, and the new issue, Unlikely Story Issue #6, The Journal of Unlikely Architecture, is live.

Come visit. Browse around our humble home on the web. Go on, put your feet up, and stay a while.

Journal of Unlikely Architecture
Issue 6, August 2013

Table of Contents

Go Through by Alma Alexander
Three Adventures of Simon Says, the Elder by Daniel Ausema
The Painted Bones  by Kelly Simmons
The Tower by Kelly Lagor
The Dross Record by Matthew Timmins
Geddarien by Rose Lemberg
The Latest Incarnation of Secondhand Johnny by Mark Rigney

Editors’ Note:

Welcome, dear readers, to our first non-entomological venture: The Journal of Unlikely Architecture. As you may have noticed, things have changed around here. We’ve redecorated, adopted a dashing new pseudonym, and grown our Unlikely family with two new additions named Cryptography and To Be Determined. They’re charmed to meet you, I’m sure. Never fear though, there are still plenty of bugs lurking in the corners.

Although much has changed — we’ve rearranged all the furniture, slapped on a new coat of paint — there’s no need to be concerned. You’re safe as houses here. Although, when you think about it, how safe are houses, really? As you dive into the pixilated pages of this issue, you’ll find your answer: not very.

You see, it is beneath the veneer of the familiar that the worst danger often lurks. After all, what better hiding place than the one you take for granted, the place you never look at twice because you know it like the back of your hand?

In this issue, you will find the familiar made strange: the innocence of a playground turned hostile and wild, the quiet melancholy haunting your neighborhood bar, dancing houses, and buried secrets. So come in, close the door, and pull up a chair next to the fire. Never mind that loose floorboard, or the hidden switch under the mantle. Pay no attention to those noises — it’s just the wind in the chimney, and the old house settling around you. Comfy? Good. Now let us draw the curtains, dim the lights, and tell you a story…

Under Construction

It’s true. Over the next month or so we’re playing around with this site to make it look and play the way we want.

In the meantime, the Journal of Unlikely Entomology is still over at http://www.grumpsjournal.com.

Submissions open

Submissions for The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography open today.

Guidelines here.

Introductions & Announcements

Announcement

The Journal of Unlikely Entomology is Molting
or
Introducing: Unlikely Story &
The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography

We Unlikely Editors of The Journal of Unlikely Entomology are happy to announce the next evolutionary stage of our improbable little bugzine: beginning with Issue #6 of The Journal of Unlikely Entomology (submissions currently open), we will be increasing our pay rates as follows:

Original fiction: $0.05/word
Reprints: $0.01/word
Existing art: $10
Original art: $25

 Additionally, we’re restructuring and rebranding a bit.

We’ll be shifting central focus to Unlikely Story, which publishes The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. Unlikely Story will publish three Unlikely journals a year, one issue each of:

• The Journal of Unlikely Entomology
• The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography
• The Journal of Whatever Tickles Our Fancy This Year

Which brings us to:

The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography

The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography will debut in January or February of 2014. This is nominally (but not exclusively, because we’re not really good at drawing straight genre-delineating lines) a cyberpunk-flavored magazine, with a (again, not exclusive) focus on stories involving cryptography, ciphers, data privacy, surveillance, hacking/cracking, and so on. We’re interested in stories that demonstrate an understanding of the real technology, rather than pseudo-magical uses of information technologies which substitute “hacker” for “mage” and “source code” for “incantation.” We’re also interested in the wildly fantastical and surrealistic. Which is to say, we’re interested in almost everything except for the way Hollywood does it.

Submissions will open July 1st and close November 1st.

Special thanks to Avi Freedman and Havenco for making all this possible.

The Journal of Unlikely Entomology
Issue 5 — May 2013

Table of Contents

Ecdysis by Nino Cipri
Spiders, Centipedes, & Holes by Cat Rambo
The Space Between by Lew Andrada
Silent Drops of Crimson and Gold Rain by Pam L. Wallace
The Lonely Barricade at Dawn by Jesse William Olson
Jeanette’s Feast by Michelle Ann King
B. by Nicola Belte

Editors’ Note:

Hello and welcome, Good Readers. We at the esteemed (by some) Journal of Unlikely Entomology are delighted to be celebrating the start of our third year in existence. As always, we thank you, Dear Readers, for joining us on this journey. After all, where would our publication be without dedicated eyes to consume it? We are also immensely grateful to the authors and artists whose works have graced our pages over the years, and for all those who have sent work our way. We hope you will all join us in raising a glass to this momentous occasion. The first (entirely virtual) round is on us.

Within the digital pages of Issue 5 (which is, by some counts, our 7th issue), you will find stories of struggle and resistance – whether it be the mysterious cosmic strivings between spiders and centipedes, the struggle against loss and personal demons, individuals standing up to a government, or standing up to their family members, these are all stories of people (and insects) who fight for what they believe in.

Thank you once again for joining us, and we hope you will enjoy these tales of struggle on scales both large and small.

The Journal of Unlikely Entomology
Issue 4 — November 2012

Table of Contents

The Famous Fabre Fly Caper by M. Bennardo
The Candy Aisle by Joanne Merriam
In Your Own Back Yard by Michael D. Winkle
Invasives by Sunny Moraine
Deep, Dark by Jonathan Maberry

Editors’ Note:

Dear readers, it is our pleasure to welcome you to our fourth issue. We are now well past the anniversary marking our first year in existence as the premier publication of fiction and art peculiarly devoted to bugs (or so we assume, not knowing of any other such specialized publications). As such, we can only assume after a year of existence, you may expect more of us. Shame on us if we do not deliver! Deliver we must, and deliver we do in this most diverse (well-rounded? capricious?) issue.

Here, should you care to delve deep, you may find a theme of cunning and strategy. Military encounters of an insectile nature! Many-legged creatures avoiding capture through their skill at evasion! A daring heist carried out in broad daylight! What more could you ask from those inclined to connive and scheme? There are, of course, quiet moments, too — moments of terrifying stillness, with sounds on the edge of hearing, and moments filled with self-reflection and stark realization.

We do hope you will enjoy these tales of daring and cleverness. And the moments of dread hush, too. Whatever your tastes — for adventure, or quiet contemplation — we thank you for joining us once again, and hope you will join us for many issues to come. After all, the varied tales of insect kind number more than the legs of a centipede… And we invite you to experience each and every one.

Cover Illustration 
Moth by Katie Rose Pipkin