I updated the subscription information on the Kaleidtrope website -- and let slip a few quick details about the upcoming third issue. I'm still putting together the final table of contents, but the October issue will feature stories and poems from a terrific lineup of artists, including Bruce Holland Rogers, Stephen Graham Jones, and Mark Rich.

I think I want to make this my official rejection letter. Is that wrong?

I hate turning things down, even when they're awful, because they're almost always not awful, just a bad fit, not quite what I'm looking for, or better suited to somebody else. In a perfect world, every submission to Kaleidotrope would be wonderful, and I would have the space and wherewithal to print every last one of them.

That even a small percentage of them are wonderful still amazes me sometimes.

So, um...t-shirts! For the consumer-minded among you.

They each feature Remi Treuer's nifty cover illustration from issue #2 (still available, by the by). I'm wearing one of the black t-shirts right now, and I'm really pleased with how they came out.

Heather was one of the first supporters of Kaleidotrope, so it seems only fair that I should do a little of the same for her new endeavor, Project Paper Crane. The way it works is pretty simple:

1. Send an email Project Paper Crane. Name and address, please.
2. Wait for said crane to arrive (it may take a while).
3. Email a picture of your crane when it arrives.

I'm going to take part and maybe donate a little folding money -- get it? it's origami, so folding money's a pun...? It's...oh, never mind. Just go, get a crane.

Copies of Kaleidotrope #2 are now available for purchase. Each issue is just $4 -- less than ten cents a page -- and a four-year subscription is just $16 altogether. (International rates may vary.)

And while you're sending Kaleidotrope a little love, why not also consider these fine publications?

• Army of the Fantastic -- "13 original tales of fantastical battles for anyone who needs a dose of un-reality."
• Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing -- "Nineteen writers dig into the imaginative spaces between conventional genres-realistic and fantastical, scholarly and poetic, personal and political-and bring up gems of new fiction: interstitial fiction."
• Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories -- "We asked twenty-one of today’s most talented and inventive writers to go even further and pen an original tale inspired by one of dozens of obscure and fascinating championship words."

I think I'm going to go pick up a copy of each. You can never have enough good stories to read.

So apparently, there's a new Livejournal out there called Kaleidotrope. I'm confident this is just one of life's weird coincidences. There's also a Kaleidotrope.com (although nothing's there, it would seem).

Anyway, I would be remiss if I didn't use this as a shameless opportunity to remind you that copies of the second issue of my Kaleidotrope are available for purchase, and I'm currently accepting submissions for the October 2007 issue and beyond.

With, I think, just a couple of exceptions, copies of the second issue went out to contributors and subscribers earlier this morning. Reviewer and distro copies will have to wait until tomorrow, if not early next week. (Kaleidotrope is a one-man operation, and there's only so much that this one man can carry with him to the post office.)

I think the issue looks really good overall, but I'd love to hear what readers have to say, good and bad alike.

Somehow this escaped my attention, but the first issue of Kaleidotrope got a couple of nice write-ups in the March 2007 issue of Xerography Debt. Both Eric Lyden and Gavin Grant received copies of the zine. Here's what they had to say:

Eric:
On first glance I wasn’t sure this was my cup of tea. But as I glanced I saw it had an article on the Transformers so I figured if nothing else I should give a quick skimming. And in spite of the fact that Jim Cleveland (the author) didn’t care for the Transformers movie (he says it was too violent for his tastes which was kinda the point—no one died on the TV show so in the movie they offed a whole bunch of Transformers. Add to that the minor but very memorable cursing and... how any true fan can dislike the movie is beyond me.) it was an enjoyable read for anyone who grew up with the show. So I read a little more and aside from the poetry (Poetry + Eric = dislike. That was a clumsy was of putting it, but fact is it just ain’t my thing) I found it to be a pretty enjoyable read. The fiction was all solid (and I’m trying to think of one story that was a real stand out, but in general it was all good. None of it quite reached “Holy shit, I will never forget this story!” level, but it was all good) and I enjoyed the back page blather where Stuart Crause just sorta goes on about topics ranging from magnetism to fashion to math. One of the better literary type zines I've seen lately. 44 not quite full size but bigger than half sized pages. No price listed but send a couple bucks at least to Fred Coppersmith

Gavin:
First issue of a new science fiction leaning lit zine that will be familiar to readers of ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE or FLYTRAP. It’s not up there with those two yet, but these are early days and Fred shows a good amount of enthusiasm putting this together and getting it out there. The Horoscopes were a nice addition, i.e. “Leo: You have an active imagination and a keen imagination,so it will be all the more sad when that pack of rabid wolves finally get to you.” It’s the “finally” in there that gets me. All those years avoiding the wolves only to be brought down at last. Ach.

Electric Velocipede and Flytrap are definitely models of the sort of high quality, if not necessarily the exact same material, that I'd like to see in Kaleidotrope. And I think each issue -- I've already started putting together #3 -- is a little stronger than the one before, as I learn from my mistakes...and learn to make new ones.

It occurs to me that I haven't posted the actual contents of Kaleidotrope's second issue. So here, for just $4 -- all of which, I think I can safely say, will wind up in my contributors' hands -- is what you'll get:

Fiction
"The Pilgrim" by Carol D. Green
"First Peeling" by Daniel Ausema
"The Diary of Hillary Sorensen-French" by S. C. Bryce
"The Role of Plumage in the Mating Habits of the Karraw" by J. R. Blackwell
"Midnight Gardener" by Bill West
"The Bride" by Adicus Ryan Garton
"Abergavenny" by J. Anderson Coats
"Einstein's Lost Paper" by George O'Gorman
Three stories by Beth Langford
"Wonan the Barbarian and the Sentence of Certain Death" by Kiel Stuart

Poetry
"Biology Experiment" by Sheri Fresonke Harper
"Sleep" by C. A. Gardner
Two poems by Terrie Leigh Relf
Two poems by Jennifer Crow
"How to Be a Bunny" by Rachel Swirsky
"Scifaiku I-V" by Daniel C. Smith
"Bee-Bop" by d. cat chopra
"Contact" by Tracie McBride
"Merchants" by John Grey
"A Lesson in Magic" by Kristine Ong Muslim
"Signal" by Aurelio Rico Lopez III

Artwork
Remi Treuer
Amelia Peel
Cathy Buburuz
Jim Cleaveland
Rod Walker
Erik Wilson

Plus an in-depth interview with popular fantasy author John Marco, horoscopes, and some other incidental bits and pieces, pieces and bits.

Well, I was expecting to have copies of the second issue in-hand by this afternoon, but, thanks to a screw-up at the printer, that isn't going to happen. Maybe it's time to find somewhere more reliable than FedEx Kinkos. (Certainly it may be time to investigate somewhere cheaper^*.)

My apologies in advance to contributors and subscribers alike. The issue almost certainly will be out before the month is over. In the meantime, if you'd like to purchase an advance copy, I definitely won't stop you...

* At the very least, an RFQ to places like Paradise Copies -- which I know prints both Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and Electric Velocipede, two fine and wonderful zines -- wouldn't be wholly out of order.

Rachel Swirsky, who has poetry forthcoming in this month's issue of Kaleidotrope, wonders over on her journal just what it is we love about stories. It's an interesting discussion.

Via Gwenda Bond.

John Marco, who I interviewed for the second issue of Kaleidotrope, is holding a contest for three free copies of his upcoming fantasy anthology, Army of the Fantastic. The book features thirteen stories about fantastical armies from writers like Tanya Huff, Alan Dean Foster, and Tim Waggoner, and it looks like a lot of fun. Drop John a line for your chance to win a copy!

Curious about what's inside issue #2 of Kaleidotrope? Well, here's what the outside looks like...



It's a little like that inside, too, only more so! Artwork courtesy the talented Remi Treuer.

Individual copies are available for the low price of $4 US ($6.50 international).

A friendly reminder that Kaleidotrope is once again open to submissions. The official reading period for the October 2007 issue runs until June 30, so please consider sending something my way -- and feel free to query if you already have but I've yet to respond.

In the coming days, I plan to post something approaching a final table of contents for the second issue, due out next month. It's turned out to be a really great issue, and I'm really proud to be publishing some terrific work from authors like Kiel Stuart, Adicus Ryan Garton, Rachel Swirsky, and Kristine Ong Muslim. The April issue also features some terrific artwork, some assorted weird bits and pieces, and an in-depth interview with popular fantasy author John Marco. Copies are available for advance purchase now. (And all the money goes to keeping contributors happy and paid.)

Happy holidays from Kaleidotrope!

A reminder that the semi-official deadline for the April 2007 issue is one week from now, December 31. And individual issues and subscriptions are still available...if you're looking for a last-minute Christmas present or something.

Best wishes for 2007!

I've updated the Kaleidotrope subscriptions page, to help eliminate some of the confusion that maybe nobody but me was having with it.

Now you can purchase individual copies of the premiere first issue, as well as advance copies of the April 2007 issue and 2-year subscriptions. If, that is, you are so inclined.

One of the major impetuses (impeti?) for starting up Kaleidotrope was seeing some of the really great zines that were already out there. For me in particular, these included publications like Flytrap and Talebones and Electric Velocipede. But the biggest influence and inspriation of all, I think, was the consistently weird and wonderful Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet

It's been brought to my attention that LCRW is celebrating its ten-year anniversary. That's a little mind-boggling, but the success they've enjoyed couldn't have happened to a better publication. Check out this new issue, if you haven't already, or send them a little love.

I can only hope that Kaleidotrope survives a quarter of that long.

Even though it's pretty sparse right now (and not likely to change soon), and even though I've never been a big fan of their design, I've set up a MySpace page for Kaleidotrope. It's mostly just to let more people know the zine exists. Feel free to add me as a friend if you'd like.

A reminder, in case you needed one, that I am actively seeking submissions for the April 2007 issue. And copies of the the first issue are still available for purchase, if you'd like one. (I'm not above doing a small reprint, if demand warrants it.)

Sam Tomaino of SFRevu calls the first issue of Kaleidotrope "a very good inaugural issue." His focus is exclusively on the fiction in the issue, and he has kind words for many of the stories.