Dear all,

I was wondering if anyone knew what the situation is over at Weird Tales Magazine these days. I've exhausted every avenue I can think of to find out and was hoping someone here might have more of an inside idea as to what is going on. Their facebook page was hacked recently, though now it seems to back under their control, but now the website has completely changed.

I sold one short story to them that never made it to the website and was told in April that I should hear back from them by the end of that month whether they wanted to buy any more stories or not. I have since emailed several times asking if they had finished considering my stories, and have received no reply.

The LAST thing I want to do is bug them, but it is almost August and I have yet to receive any information. So, if anyone knows anything at all, please let me know.

Thank you.

As far as I understand it, they are under a new editor now. Everything has changed. I checked the site a few weeks or so ago, and was able to get more info on these changes, but visiting it now, it seems changed yet again, and difficult to navigate--garish with artwork, and scant on actual info.

Update: I just remembered--the current editor and owner is now Marvin Kaye. I believe he purchased WT quite recently, though exactly when, I don't know.

Marvin Kaye's site



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 21 Jul 14 | 02:52PM by K.A. Opperman.

I just searched Google and found someone else who is having the same problem as you. You can read it here;

[www.writersdigest.com]

It looks like on Duotrope it lists Weird Tales response time to be 300 days and you can query every 60, it seems. I can't believe how much this website has changed. I just looked at it not long ago and got plenty of information on it and this was after they fixed their hacker issues. There is nothing even clickable that's pertinent to anyone's interest, only if you want to buy the latest issue. There's not even a submissions or about page anymore.

Duotrope has altogether dropped Weird Tales from its market listings.

They have several theme issues planned for the future. I submitted a new story for their "Ice" issue many months ago but have yet to have a response. I'll always support them, because the new issues have all been very good, and WEIRD TALES will always hold a special place in my wither'd heart.

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

I also submitted a story for the Ice issue. It's been over a year now since I did... Did you ever hear anything back?

pml



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 26 Dec 14 | 02:26PM by pmloveland.

No, I have yet to hear back. I think the Ice issue may be a long way away, as first they will be publishing their "Telsa" issue. The thing to do, with publications like WT, is to submit a story and then forget the story exists, and continue writing and submitting new works or compiling a collection of one's own. If, after three or four years, there has been no response and the story has not been publish'd, then write and let them know that it has been too lengthy a wait and the story is going to be submitted elsewhere. In my case, I will let the story stay with the editors forever, and if it is not publish'd then it will become a "lost" story. It doesn't matter to me personally because I have so many other stories or books awaiting publication.

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

I cannot abide such long wait times--even for a mag as famous as WT. There are always other avenues.

@Wilum, Thanks for the response. Took me a while to find my way back here. I understand the wisdom of your approach. It's just that the short I gave to WT is the one I have put the most into since coming back to them after about ten years of writing novels and scripts in a vacuum. I've mostly submitted to smaller presses and publications and wasn't prepared for such a long wait. I was also in contact with Stephen there(who I assume is gone now) and he had broken down the timeline for the Tesla and Ice sub schedule and it would have led to a response of some kind about three months ago at the latest. Seems like a lot goes on behind the scenes there right now with no announcements or updates. Such is life with higher end periodicals, I'm quickly learning. Anyway, thanks again

pml

Part of my patience is due to my being an obsess'd H. P. Lovecraft fan-boy, & writing for Weird Tales is a potent part of that Lovecraftian legacy. There is an allure to being publish'd by the magazine, just as there wou'd have been had I ever had a story in an Arkham House anthology. I like to have my little connections to Lovecraft and the Lovecraft Circle--that's why being friends with Robert Bloch enthralled me, because he became a writer due to Lovecraft's influence, and I began to write fiction because of Bho's influence and friendship (although I never had the guts to send him any of my work for critique). I really really really want WT to publish my ice story, I crave it in an explicitly adolescent manner. It's such an obsession, writing for WT, that I couldn't under any circumstances pull my story and have it publish'd elsewhere, because then I wou'd destroy all possibility of it being publish'd in that enchanted journal. It ain't rational thinking, but who wants to be judicious and sane?

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

haha Sanity is overrated and relative, I always say. I totally understand about your attraction to WT based on a love for Lovecraft. I'm so excited to have a chance to be in WT for exactly that reason. And, I can also wait. I just wish they would give a sign that they are still in production at all. I think they only released one issue last year. It's just worrying. Well, hopefully we will share the pages of the Ice issue. clinkees ^_^

pml