Drowning Nor Waving

So: stuff afoot! Here's some!

1) You may or may not be aware of magick4terri, an LJ-based fundraiser to help writer, artist and editor Terri Windling through a serious financial crisis. I've never met Terri, but her work in establishing urban fantasy, in creating a distinct aesthetic, in creating a space for certain kinds of art and fostering it at Endicott Studios has been a huge influence on what I do, and how, and has been crucial to tons of friends and our community.

So. I've posted an auction item here -- a signed, personalized first edition of Above to be delivered the second I get hands on one, as well as any bookmarks or swag that accumulates -- and if you're interested in bidding, go to. There's also some fantastic, droolworthy stuff being offered, so taking the time to browse it is, well, time well spent.

2) The YA Scavenger Hunt, organized by author Colleen Houck, is on from December 1 to 4th! She's corralled a whole bunch of YA authors into creating a scavenger hunt for your delectation, featuring not only a bucket of extra and secret material for a whole lot of awesome upcoming releases, but there are also fabulous prizes. Every author has a piece of secret content and a link to the next person on the hunt, and if you collect all the words marked in red and enter the contest before December 4th, you could win those fabulous prizes we mentioned up there.



My featured content is for author Lisa Nowak, and everything's at the website. The secret content for Above is...out there in the internets. Being secretive. Waiting to be caught.

3) The December Ideomancer has hit the wider Internets!

Our final issue for 2011 speaks on a winter topic: connection, and isolation, for the months when we here at Ideomancer headquarters are hemmed in most by the snow and dark, and reach out most to each other for light.

Michael John Grist’s "The Orphan Queen" shows, slantwise, the terribleness of isolation and the terrible bravery it takes to conquer it; Ken Schneyer’s "Neural Net", one of our first pieces of hyperfiction in much too long, echoes through its intertwined structure the ideas of withdrawal, and love, and hiding from the world; and Erica Satifka returns to our pages with "Signs Following", a soft, edged story about faraway places and the things we will do when our ties to both friends and universe are threatened.

Poetry from Mary Turzillo, Brit Mandelo, C.G. Olsen, and David C. Kopaska-Merkel dips from relationships to houses to black holes, all places to be alone together, and as always, the usual book reviews.

We’d also like to note another staff departure: Marsha Sisolak has been a part of Ideomancer since 2002, as a junior editor, then publisher, and then the aesthetic eye behind the art that goes up with every story and poem we publish, and after almost a decade in the small press coal mines, she’s moving on to focus more on her own (excellent!) writing. Thank you, Marsha – you’ll be missed!

As usual, we hope you enjoy this quarter’s issue, and if so, please consider dropping something into our tip jar. Ideomancer relies on reader donations to pay its contributors for their excellent fiction and poetry, and even five dollars makes a big difference.

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So, consider yourselves all announced. Me, I'm going to get some lunch. Happy internetting!