I’m currently in the process of retooling Black Heart Magazine, so that I can publish a wider variety of genres and not feel like I’m being disloyal to erotica.
Isn’t it stupid, how you start to have these ideas about Who You Are that don’t really match with What You Actually Are? Sometimes it’s because of how others perceive you, true, but sometimes it’s entirely your own fault. Perhaps spurred on by the things others believe, but ultimately up to you to correct.
It can be very hard to let go of a certain persona, particularly if it worked or was popular in the past. But I am definitely not the sex-hungry minx of Black Heart’s past anymore, if indeed I ever was.
(Was she or wasn’t she? I can see the gossip rags now. If anyone thought I was famous enough to celeb-profile, which I’m not.)
In any event, I’ve been madly storming the halls of my mind (some call this “brainstorming”), ransacking it for ideas, thoughts, conclusions on what to do next, and how to do it. So far I’ve decided this: Black Heart is now about fiction that breaks the rules.
What does it mean to break the rules? How does that translate to a mission statement? I say mission statements be damned; all you need is a nice soundbyte or elevator pitch. The fiction I publish breaks the rules, and that’s really all you need to know.
You can find our submission guidelines online. Supposing, of course, you’re rule-abiding enough to read ‘em. If not, you can send your submissions to me via the Black Heart contact form.
In other news, I’ve been madly reading up on all the other lit mags I can find online, and I think one of my new favorites is the Summerset Review. I was tracking down stalking an author whose work I enjoyed on another site, and discovered she’d published a piece at the Summerset Review. It turned out to be an essay, which was kind of interesting, since it seemed very much like her peculiar brand of fiction at first. In any event, I found it very strange and disarming and sad and funny by turns, and even wrote a letter to the editor about it, in a woefully misguided attempt to participate in their “Fifty-for-Fifty” contest (which encourages letters to the editor), only to receive a nice letter back from the editor explaining that this wasn’t the most recent issue, and there was a timeline involved, which I’d missed.
Whoops. I am an idiot. Or I was just so excited to read this piece that I totally didn’t realize it was from Summer 2009 and not Winter 2010. In either case, editor Joseph Levens kindly told me he could offer me a free copy of the actual current issue, so that I could potentially comment on that instead. So all’s well that ends well: free issue, nice editor, and some very well-written stuff at this journal, which I highly recommend (and not just because they’re sending me a free issue, although that certainly helps).
Therefore, you must now go read Aubrey Hirsch’s “Speaking from the Throat” at the Summerset Review, and while you’re at it, enjoy some of her fiction over at Litsnack, too.
Hi Laura!
Just wanted to stop by and say that I’m glad you’re enjoying the work.
Thanks for the kind words!
–Aubrey