Uncanny Magazine Launches Kickstarter To Fund Year Two

Uncanny Magazine is raising funds through Kickstarter to cover some of its operation and production costs for the second year. Half of the initial goal of $18,700 was raised the first day but more is needed before the appeal ends September 10.

At the magazine’s helm are three-time Hugo Award-winner Lynne M. Thomas (Apex Magazine, Chicks Dig Time Lords, Glitter & Mayhem) and three-time Hugo Award nominee Michael Damian Thomas (Apex Magazine, Queers Dig Time Lords, Glitter & Mayhem).

“We publish intricate, experimental stories and poems with verve and vision from writers from every conceivable background,” says Lynne. “The Uncanny team believes there is room in the genre for stories that inspire the imagination, challenge beliefs, and make readers feel. With the hard work of the best staff and contributors in the world, Uncanny Magazine delivered everything as promised with the Year One Kickstarter. Uncanny has received outstanding reviews and community support. Some pieces from our first issue in 2014 even garnered award nominations and a Year’s Best anthology inclusion.”

Uncanny has developed several additional funding streams to make the magazine sustainable, but still needs to raise support.

For Year Two, Uncanny has solicited original short fiction from Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award winning and nominated authors including: Seanan McGuire (October Daye series), Ursula Vernon (Digger), Aliette de Bodard (The House of Shattered Wings), Elizabeth Bear (Karen Memory), Amal El-Mohtar (“The Truth about Owls”), Alyssa Wong (“The Fisher Queen”), Carmen Maria Machado (“The Husband Stitch”), Maria Dahvana Headley (Magonia), Mary Robinette Kowal (Glamourist Histories series), Scott Lynch (Gentlemen Bastards series), Rachel Swirsky (“If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love”), Catherynne M. Valente (Deathless), and Max Gladstone (The Craft Sequence). There will also be numerous slots for unsolicited submissions.

Uncanny Magazine year two plans to showcase original poetry by Sofia Samatar, M Sereno, Isabel Yap, and Sonya Taaffe, and essays by Chris Kluwe, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Jim C. Hines, Sarah Kuhn, and Tansy Rayner Roberts.

Uncanny Magazine Year Two will also feature cover art by Julie Dillon, Galen Dara, and Katy Shuttleworth.

The funding goal will pay for all six issues of Uncanny Year Two, including:

  • 17,000 words of new fiction per issue (3-5 stories, depending on length)
  • A reprint story
  • Reprint cover art
  • 3 new poems
  • 2 new nonfiction essays
  • 2 new interviews

Uncanny pays $.08 per word for original fiction, $30 per poem, $50 per essay, and $100 per reprinted artwork.

The Year Two budget includes paying the staff, podcast production and hosting costs, website hosting and maintenance costs, backer rewards, and Kickstarter fees and taxes.

The Staff

Michi Trota is Uncanny’s Managing Editor. She is a writer, editor, speaker, communications manager, and community organizer in Chicago, IL. Michi writes about geek culture and fandom, focusing primarily on issues of diversity and representation, on her blog, Geek Melange. She was a featured essayist in Invisible: An Anthology of Representation in SF/F (edited by Jim C. Hines) and is a professional editor with fifteen years of experience in publishing and communications.

Deborah Stanish conducts Uncanny’s author interviews. She co-edited the Hugo-nominated Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who with L.M. Myles and Whedonistas with Lynne M. Thomas, and is a founding member and the moderator of the Doctor Who: Verity! podcast.

Uncanny’s podcast is edited and produced by Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky. Erika is a founding member and producer of the Doctor Who: Verity! podcast. She also co-hosts The Audio Guide to Babylon 5 and is a frequent panelist on The Incomparable. Steven is one of the three hosts of the popular Doctor Who podcast Radio Free Skaro, as well as a co-host of another Doctor Who podcast called The Memory Cheats.

Amal El-Mohtar is the Uncanny Magazine podcast narrator.  Amal is the Nebula-nominated author of The Honey Month, a collection of poetry and prose written to the taste of twenty-eight different kinds of honey. Her poems have won the Rhysling award thrice and the Richard Jefferies Prize once. Her story “The Truth about Owls” from Kaleidoscope is the winner of the 2015 Locus Award for Best Short Story