Most of our beloved readership have probably noticed that the gap between Issue 9 and Issue 10 has been rather longer than usual. Some of you probably worried that we weren’t coming back, that we would fade away like so many small magazines before us. We haven’t, and we’re not going to.

Issue 10 only has two pieces. After having two potential third pieces withdrawn by their authors just when we were about to send acceptance letters, we chose to take it as a sign. Both stories, despite the differences in their scope and scale, feature characters struggling to cope with bizarre new circumstances while old problems and resentments complicate an already challenging situation. They are also both stories where, after a long time of feeling stuck and bored and a bit pointless, something is finally happening. There’s also space travel and cyborgs, and one of the hardest-to-define sorts of magic we’ve ever published.

In fantasy, when something is wrong, someone damn well does something about it. In the past year here at the Fantasist, there haven’t been any dragons to slay, or curses to lift, and we’ve had a frustrating lack of success at overthrowing any evil overlords. But some of the ways we’ve been doing things aren’t in the best interests of either the work we publish or the community we try to serve, and that’s a problem too. So we’re going to be making some pretty dramatic changes to how we do things around here.

First and foremost, we no longer feel that the magazine format is the best way to publish novellas. Instead of publishing three novellas the third Thursday of every third month, we will be adopting a more book-like model, publishing two novellas a year, working closely with the authors on revisions, and paying considerably more per piece. We will also be branching out from novellas into other areas that support our evolving mission statement. A list follows:

• Publishing print Young Adult novels.

• Creating an archive of as close as possible to all the fiction ever.

• Developing tabletop roleplaying games.

• Teaching and running workshops locally (Dover, DE area at present).

This is all going to take some time of course, so The Fantasist will be going on a roughly year-long hiatus while we work things out behind the scenes. Expect to hear from us again in late November of 2020, if you know what I mean. If you want to learn more about our upcoming projects, or how you can get involved, please reach out to us by email.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy Issue 10 of The Fantasist, which we present to you on the third anniversary of our very first issue. We thank you for your ongoing support. And we thank you for your words.

And now…



Issue 10

Cyborg’s Lament by Dorianne Emmerton

and

The Misfortunes of Oscar Goldberg by Cora Ruskin

Evan Adams

Creative Director

The Fantasist