We are proud and happy to present to you two new stories!

Helios by Gary Moshimer is a rare thing — a very original ghost story. I love this story. I mean, I love it. It’s a fun read and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Skinned Cats by Mike Howard is another rare thing — a fun and convincing tale told from an alien point of view. That might not seem so rare but, trust me, it is. This one is great!

Please do yourself a big favor and read these stories. You’ll be glad you did.

Oh, and, um… don’t forget to tip the writers. You only get out of this life what you put into it, and if you want more great stories like these, you have to do your part to encourage the writers to keep writing them. Every little bit helps.

Enjoy!

Because of other projects, we’re going on submissions hiatus starting April 15 and probably coming back on September first.

I’ve updated the Submissions Guidelines. It says the same general things but now more succinctly. One thing that’s different is that I’ve given a definite word limit. We used to leave it nebulous, but now it’s between 1000 and 20,000 words.

Oh, there is one other change I did make. We pay using PayPal (always have!) but now if you don’t have PayPal and don’t wish to use it, then submit somewhere else. Until a better system comes along, that’s what we use and that’s how we’re set up. It’s the Internet standard and, folks, we’re living in the year 2007. We may not have flying cars but we do have a universal electronic payment system.
Do I sound a bit irritable? Stressed is more like it. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to my sweet nurturing self after the hiatus.

In the meantime I know we’re publishing at least two stories, and there’s some more gems in the slush pile we’re eyeballing. So keep coming back. Just because we’re on reading hiatus doesn’t mean we’re not putting up stories.

I put some Yahoo content-sensitive ads on the site. I was going to put them on the stories, too, but it didn’t look right. We’re hoping to generate a bit of extra income on the side, and plan to use all of it (if there is any) for paying our writers.

Until this point, you see, we’ve been paying authors out of our pockets. It will no doubt remain this way for the time being, because it takes time to built up income from these ads. Our hope is to fine tune the context matching so that the ads that show up here will be of genuine interest to our readers, and thus be of use to them. They click and learn (or find) something they can use, the company that placed the ad gets business, and we get a percentage of the revenue for the click. Everyone wins.

At least, that’s the theory.

So did we sell out? I don’t think so. We’re just trying to get more money to pay for more stories.

A new story is up! For your reading pleasure we’re proud to present to you Shares by Harry Ingham. If you enjoy it half as much as we did, please feel free to show your appreciation to Harry via the donation button down at the bottom of the story. Any little bit goes a long way to encourage the author to keep those words flowing!

In fact, please feel free to do make a donation to any of the stories, either up front or in the archives. The money goes directly to the author.

And you writers out there, thank you for your submissions! Keep them coming!

Everyone have a very happy holiday season.

I know it’s not quite December 1st yet, but our hiatus is over, and all you writers can start sending in your submissions again.

Our sister publication, Quantum Kiss, is also open for submissions — in fact they just bought their first story, and it’s up and available to read. Check it out.

So happy holidays everyone! Hope all you NaNoWriMo writers hit your word goals tonight … you only have a few hours to go!

One of the reasons we went on hiatus was because we have other projects going, one of which is opening a new sister publication: Quantum Kiss, A Journal of Romantic Speculative Fiction. You’ll find it over at QuantumKiss.com, and yes, it’s now open for submissions. Go check it out.

With that finally up and running, there’s just one more thing to get out of the way before we resume accepting submissions here, and that’s NaNoWriMo. In case you’ve never heard of National Novel Writing Month, it’s a wild and fun concept where you and thousands of other writers — young and old, beginners and veterans — are challenged to crank out at least 50,000 words in one month.

Since I’m participating this year, that’s why our reading hiatus doesn’t end until after November.

If you’re one of us NaNoWriMo maniacs, here’s wishing you luck! And if not, here’s hoping you come back and join us in December.

Happy Halloween!

Jerry J. Davis
DESF Editor

I’ve been wanting to add some interactive features to DESF for quite a while, and this is the first step: A news section (yeah, okay, it’s a blog) where we can post news and happenings quickly, and you can add your feedback, comments, addendums, or whatever else you’d like.

Next I’d like to see about adding context advertising to raise money to help pay our writers. Right now the money comes out of our pockets, which is why we don’t pay anywhere near pro rates — but if we could get this site to generate some income, we’ll be able to sweeten the pot.

Hey, I can dream, right? What do you think? Would the addition of advertising spoil your enjoyment of this site? Would you be willing to click on a few ads that caught your attention in order to help pay for more content?