Nuketown Closing Fiction Section in July

Nuketown is closed to fiction submissions. After June 2002, the fiction section will be closing down (although it will live on in the archives) and it is not likely to re-open any time in the near future.

This does not mean that Nuketown itself is shutting down. The rest of the webzine will continue on, although in a slightly modified format. I’m ditching the monthly format (and its accompanying deadlines) in favor of a more weblog-like existence.

So why the big change? Lots of reasons.

Family and work commitments for one. Finances for another (Nuketown is a money-losing proposition — always was). Paying $40 a month for fiction more than doubled my NT budget, all of which came out of my own freelance account. Budgeting $30-odd a month for NT is manageable, $70 is a luxury. Burn out for still another — I’ve been publishing Nuketown regularly (usually with summers off) since June 1996. Editing fiction was starting to get a little old — although the gems like those in the June 2002 edition, or our recent two-parter “Call to Arms” — continued to make it enjoyable. The biggest reason though, is simply time. There’s not enough of it, and unfortunately, the Fiction section is expendible.

Am I happy with this turn of events? Nope. I was finally starting to get the kind of submissions i was hungering for — good libertarian-themed fiction the likes of which I haven’t been able to find in great quantities elsewhere (which was one of the reasons why I was publishing it on Nuketown).

Will Nuketown publish fiction again someday? Probably. I hope to keep publishing Nuketown in one form or another for years to come, and I’m sure at some point I’ll have the time to edit stories again, although admittedly that might be when I retire 30 or 40 years from now. More likely is that I’ll start publishing some of my own stuff on Nuketown again (of course, that’s how all of this got started back in ’96…)

I’d like to thank my excellent fiction staff — Kirsten Lincoln and Andy Colaninno — for all their hardwork and dedication in reading and editing submissions, as well as all the writers who’ve taken the time to send in their submissions. It was a great run, and it was a lot of fun while it lasted.

Thanks again,

Ken

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