Shimmer Magazine

Speculative fiction for a miscreant world

[colleendoran]

Another panel from the book I am drawing for Neil Gaiman. Featuring badgers.

And a picture of Neil Gaiman from the BBC. As a badger.

This is a coincidence.

[shimmerzine]

Shimmer returns today with THE VERY FIRST STORY from Issue #20! :D

That means that if you have just $2.99 - you can read the entire issue today! Buy the rest of issue 20 here: http://www.shimmerzine.com/issue-20/

You can also subscribe to the magazine for just $15 and get a whole year of issues. :) Subscriptions and sales help us bring you great stories every two weeks.

But, as always, if you like the story, you help us out a ton just by sharing this link with your friends.

The Seaweed and the Wormhole by Jenn Grunigen:

“Your mother lives in a swamp?”

“No.”

“Then why are we here?”

“My mother is the swamp,” Peregrine said. He leaned towards the mire’s trees, heaped as dark and snarled as bull kelp on a beach. His movement was drunken—he swayed forward, and back, then stumbled in.

Read the rest at the link above!

[shimmerzine]

Shimmer's back today with our last story from issue 19, "List of Items in Leather Valise Found on Welby Crescent" by Rachael Acks katsudonburi

Description: Dark brown leather valise,~29,300 cubic centimeters in volume. Pigskin lining intact, beef leather exterior badly degraded. Waterlogged, and upon arrival sported a generous coating of rotting leaves. Remnants of blood were found on one exterior corner of the valise.

To read the rest, click the link!

You can read the rest of issue 19 on Shimmerzine.com!

Remember: If you subscribe now, you can get all of issue 20 when it's released in 2 weeks. :)

[shimmerzine]

Hello again!

Shimmer's back today with the third story from issue 19, "Jane" by Margaret Dunlap.

"--Jane?"

I had heard Rob’s question. It’s just that while I was in the middle of performing CPR in the back of an ambulance on a patient who had been very stable until he had all of a sudden up and crashed, I wasn’t going to stop and answer it. It was a stupid question anyway. Not that that stopped Rob from repeating it.

“You okay back there, Jane?”

Oh, I was great. The ambulance was barreling towards the hospital as fast as L.A. traffic could get out of our way, and I was dead certain we weren’t going to make it.

To read the rest, click here.

And, as always, you can buy the rest of issue 19 here, or subscribe at shimmerzine.com. (Subscriptions are where we get the money to pay our authors so we can keep bringing you awesome fiction.

If you like this story, share it with a friend. :)

We’ll be back in another two weeks with a new story!

[jonklassen2]

[gentlemanbones]

[dreadpiratecherry-deactivated20]

[shimmerzine]

 Hello everyone! 

Shimmer is back with our second story from Issue 19 today, "Methods of Divination" by Tara Isabella Burton!

But visions are not prophecies, he told me. Prophecies come true.

I sat him down and told him to tell me everything, and promised I would tell him what it meant.

“There is a place,” I told him, “where time runs back on itself, where parallel lines converge, and where visions become prophecies. Where you will be not alone. There is a place where everything is reconciled, and the great mountains that cover you in shadow will be made flat before you. The valleys that make you dizzy when you teeter on their edges will be brought to your feet when you walk. There, you will understand your visions.”

He crossed my palm with twenty-dollar bills.

“There,” I said, “you will find her.”

Prophecies are for fools.

To read the rest, click here.

And, as always, you can buy the rest of issue 19 here, or subscribe at shimmerzine.com. (Subscriptions are where we get the money to pay our authors so we can keep bringing you awesome fiction.

If you like this story, share it with a friend. :)

We'll be back in another two weeks with a new story!

[shimmerzine]

We're very pleased to bring you the first story in Shimmer #19 today, "The Earth and Everything Under" by K. M. Ferebee.

"Peter had been in the ground for six months when the birds began pushing up out of the earth. Small ones, at first, with brown feathers: sparrows, spitting out topsoil, their black eyes alert. They shook and stretched their wings in the sunlight. Soon they were pecking the juniper berries and perching on rooftops, just like other birds. They were small, fat, and soft; Elyse wanted to hold them. But they were not tame and they would not come to her.

The next birds were larger: larks and grackles. They crawled t"heir way not just out of the dirt round Elyse’s own house, the old Devereaux homestead, but farther out west, towards the town of St. Auburn. When Elyse drove down for her week’s worth of groceries, she could see the holes by the sides of the fields, the raw earth scuffed up and still teeming with worm-life. The birds picked at the worms for their meals, pulling them like long threads from a sweater, unweaving their bodies’ hard wet work. Sometimes the corn had died in patterns close to the holes, like it had been burned."

Click here to read the rest!

We'll be back with a new story in two weeks, but if you can't wait, you can purchase all of issue 19 here.

If you enjoy this story, please share the link with your friends. :)

For future updates, follow this tumblr, or sign up for our newsletter at shimmerzine.com.

[shimmerzine]

Hey!

Sylvia Moreno-Garcia is looking for some interior black-and-white artwork for an anthology due out in 2015.

"Our 2015 all-woman anthology She Walks In Shadows will include some black-and-white interior artwork. We are therefore looking for a few women artists in order to fill the pages with awesomeness. We’ll pay $100 for original, commissioned black-and-white artwork printed in the book, $50 for previously published pieces or pieces included in your existing portfolio (so if you drew something for a magazine and it was used two years ago, or something for display on deviantART, we’ll consider it). We won’t use the artwork on t-shirts or other merchandise. We are looking for illustrators with experience and an interest in creating horrific, dark, fantastic, or surreal artwork."

Check the link for more info.

(On a related note, did you know that Shimmer buys art in addition to stories? Check out our guidelines.)

[shimmerzine]

Shimmer #19 is available now!

Have you heard the news? Shimmer has gone digital and Issue #19 is officially here!

We have so many lovely things to share with you in this issue, beginning with our cover. The artwork by Sandro Castelli is inspired by “The Earth and Everything Under,” by K.M. Ferebee. Ferebee has appeared in Shimmer before, with “Bullet Oracle Instinct” (Issue #13) and “The Bird Country” (Issue #15). We think she’s made of awesome, and are sure you will too!

We are also thrilled to welcome Robert Lee as our new Creative Director. He has brilliantly captured the spirit of Shimmer in his new design for us, and we can’t wait to see what he has up his sleeves!

In #19, we also welcome three new-to-Shimmer authors: Tara Isabella Burton, Margaret Dunlap, and Rachael Acks. If you haven’t already been exposed to their work, we believe their stories here will make for an excellent introduction.

Where can I get this wonderful thing, you are no doubt wondering! Issue #19 can be found in PDF, ePub, and mobi formats, all DRM-free.

You can grab Shimmer on this very site, Weightless, and of course Amazon. And for the first time, you can grab a Shimmer subscription from Weightless, too! When you subscribe to Shimmer, it’s like getting an issue free!

Note to subscribers: You should have received Issue #19 via email. If you haven’t gotten it yet, please take a moment to drop us a note via the contact form, and we will hook you up!

You can add #19 to your Goodreads lists, too!

(The stories from issue #19 will be going up on the website starting on May 6, but if you want to read the stories right now, pick up a copy. :) )

[wanderlustingthoughts]

Look at this tree, man.

The Angel Oak Tree is estimated to be in excess of 1500 years old, stands 66.5 ft (20 m) tall, measures 28 ft (8.5 m) in circumference, and produces shade that covers 17,200 square feet (1,600 m2). From tip to tip Its longest branch distance is 187 ft.

[shimmerzine]

The badgers feel this is a pretty shimmery tree. Do you agree?

[shimmerzine]

Shimmer #19 is fast approaching, but we could not wait to give you a peek at the gorgeous cover. The artwork for “The Earth & Everything Under” by K.M. Ferebee is by our art director, Sandro Castelli, with design by Robert N. Lee. We are positively certain you will join us on May 1st, to discover our first digital issue in its entirety!

The Shimmer tumblr badgrs will not be posting the new stories here, but we will be sure to let you know when you can read these awesome stories!

(For more about Shimmer, visit http://www.shimmerzine.com )

[animals-animals-animals]

Badger (by Ian Blacker)

[shimmerzine]

Taking a slush break - PHEW!

[shimmerzine]

Exciting news! Shimmer Magazine is moving to an online format starting with issue 19!

Fresh Fiction, Faster

We’ll release a new 4-story issue on the first of every other month — this year, that means May, July, September, and November. We’ll put a fresh story up on our web site every two weeks, so you can read each story for free. Don’t want to wait? No problem; you can buy each issue in convenient DRM-free digital formats, or subscribe and have each issue delivered to you. Subscribe today, and support Shimmer‘s brand of elegant and distinctive fiction.

Annual Print Anthology

But print is awesome, you say? We agree; we proudly produced print editions since our first issue. We still think it’s a great format, so we’ll release an annual print anthology collecting all of that year’s stories. The anthology will also be available in electronic formats. Why, yes, it does make a splendid holiday present — it will be available in early December, just in time for holiday shopping.

Issue 19, Table of Contents

Here’s what you have to look forward to: The Earth & Everything Under, by K.M. Ferebee. Available May 6.

Peter had been in the ground for six months when the birds began pushing up out of the earth.

Methods of Divination, by Tara Isabella Burton. Available May 20.

The universe breaks so quietly…

Jane, by Margaret Dunlap.  Available June 3.

You will not believe the paperwork you have to fill out when you save someone’s life, and then your ungrateful patient turns around and bites you.

List of Items Found in Valise on Welby Crescent, by Rachael Acks. Available June 17.

1 ticket stub for Dr. Birrenbaum’s Stupendous Sideshow, with subtitle: Feel the Raw Power of the Ferocious Tiger Boy! Hear the Heartbreaking Song of the Bird Woman! Dream Darkly as You Gaze Upon the Siren!

Celebration!

To celebrate, we’re giving away 3 subscriptions. This’ll get you a 6-issue subscription, delivered right to your inbox. Just help us spread the word on Twitter–be sure to link to this site, and use the hashtag #NewShimmer to be eligible to win.  We will randomly select three winners this Friday (April 18th) at noon, MT.

Gratitude

Thanks to all the readers who have supported us over the years. We’re looking forward to bringing our stories to new readers, too. And huge thanks to Robert N. Lee for his work on our web site redesign, to the Shimmer authors who are gracefully weathering the transition with us, and to all the Shimmer staffers who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make this happen, especially E. Catherine Tobler and Sean Markey.