My name is Alex Keegan and I hope I'm not breaking any rules introducing a new short-story writing and craft magazine I'm involved with.

The Seventh Quark is a bi-monthly A4-format magazine similar in look to The New Writer, MsLexia and Writer’s Forum. It will have a full-colour cover and be of the highest quality inside. Its aim is to publish short-stories but also to teach.

It will do this by featuring prize-winners from other competitions, a quality craft article each issue, criticism and reviews. In particular, while still catering for the entertaining read, it will be a source of quality literary fiction that has been seriously hard to place in the UK market. It will also endeavour in every issue to publish one promising newcomer, either totally unpublished or little-published.

While primarily a literary magazine, each issue will feature one humorous piece and one or two 'genre pieces', crime, speculative fiction, fantasy, and we hope to regularly feature one short-short story from under 12's, another for teens. The magazine will endeavour to create discussion on its pages and on the accompanying web-site. There will be a letters page, reader voting, at least one full story critique. We will encourage reciprocation, and this will include subscribing to The Seventh Quark.

Submissions will be free to subscribers. Non-subscribers will be charged a reading fee of £5 ($10 US). Competition entries will be cheaper to subscribers. Quality fiction will be solicited from experienced writers, for payment. Quality reprints will also be sought. The magazine will contain winners from its regular competitions and other material will be open to a reader vote and a solid prize, growing with the magazine.The magazine will publish bi-monthly. A single issue will cost £6 (inc UK postage and packing).

UK Subscriptions

£ 22 04 Issues (UK p&p included)
£ 33 06 Issues (UK p&p included)
£ 42 08 Issues (UK p&p included)
£ 60 12 Issues (UK p&p included)

For information on international subscriptions, email sales@7thquarkmagazine.com

Three great competitions

* Frantic Flash – closing date – December 5 2004


* Bi-Monthly Shorter Story Prize – closing date – December 31 2004


* Quarterly Story Prize – closing date – January 31 2005


Watch this site for further updates in the near future.

Contact seventhquark@tribe13.co.uk for further details.

One of my pet gripes is people who happily submit to magazines
or enter competitions but don't support those magazines with subscriptions.

Seventh Quark has cost a small fortune to set up, but it's something I've
always wanted to do and it's been in planning for two-plus years, so now
it really is happening.

To reward subscribers (it's bi-monthly BTW) we give them cheaper entry
to competitions and do not charge a reading fee for normal submissions

NON-subscribers WILL have to pay a reading fee (to support the magazine)
and they will pay extra for their first entry (and get a copy of the magazine)..

One thing some folks may be interested in, is the fact that the magazine will be
oriented towards learning craft. So there will be a major serious article on craft
from me, at least one review and one short-story critique, and pages for feedback
and craft questions.

We hope to add occasional series for beginning writers, and for children/teens.

We are aiming to raise the top-level in terms of literary quality. In the UK there seems to
be a glass ceiling for literary fiction (I have tyo send a lot of mine to the US, for example)
so expect to see 1-2 very high quality literary stories as well as at least one genre story.
and we hope (providing reasonable standards are achieved) to publish the work of an
unpublished or "little published" newcomer.

to find out more go to my website www.alexkeegan.com or better still go to

www.7thquarkmagazine.com

Our first competition is called Frantic Flash and to be in that (written on the night of Dec 5th) you need to sign up beforehand.

Happy to answer any questions..


alex

Hi Alex,

The new magazine sounds very promising, and yes, it will provide a needed market in the UK.

Ani

One of my pet gripes is people who happily submit to magazines or enter competitions but don't support those magazines with subscriptions.

Surely by submitting to competitions, most of which require a reading or entry fee one is supporting the magazine? There are dozens of small magazines out there, many of which make no payment to the writers they publish apart from a single copy, and some don't even do that. One simply can't afford to subscribe to them all. Without writers there would be nothing to publish and no magazine. A subscriber base built on readers as well as writers needs to be sought otherwise the edifice is little more than a pile of sugar.

Nell.

Thank-you, Nell.


I hope you subscribe or at least take a good look at the first two issues.

Compared to the US, the UK litmag market is really poor and it needs changing.

I want no less than "Quark" to become the flagship magazine with a range of work from
a VG beginner in the "virgin" slot right through to top professionals writing at their peak

(plus lots of craft discussion and stuff).

I get my craft work published regularly in The Internet Writing Journal, New Writer and places
like that and I can't help noticing how some craft things are regurgitations and superficial.

What I think we all need starting out is a little nbit more meat.


alx

Surely by submitting to competitions, most of which require a reading or entry fee one is supporting the magazine? There are dozens of small magazines out there, many of which make no payment to the writers they publish apart from a single copy, and some don't even do that. One simply can't afford to subscribe to them all. Without writers there would be nothing to publish and no magazine. A subscriber base built on readers as well as writers needs to be sought otherwise the edifice is little more than a pile of sugar.


Opos, my last post was thanking ANI.

Nell, you are absolutely right, but does it not follow that if a person is subscribing AND entering that magazine's competitions, they should have that contribution acknowledged?

Under 500 subscriptions, a quality magazine makes almost nothing per issue. I know the editor of one nice small mag who makes 4p per issue (after putting in all the time for nothing).

As for WRITERS, there are plenty (too many). The magazine I just quoted has closed its borders to new submissions and has enough stories for three years! I intend to pay all contributors, even if it's a small amount to begin with.

It's READERS who are the problem. Come on, let's all be honest, how many magazines do we sub to but not buy, or buy and then skim? The whole idea of Quark is to make it very readable, but not mere entertainment but as a quality learning vehicle.

Do the numbers. If an individual was a subscriber say for six issues (£33) and entered the bimonthly and quarterly competitons (one entry each) that would be "investing" £83 in a year (but I bet that kind of commitment would result in vast improvement and some prizes!)

Non subscribers will pay an extra £1 to enter (or they can simply not bother) and their first entry includes a magazine. So the logic is, if an individual is likely to enter more than once a year, subscribe. Frankly they are the kind of people an editor wants to deal with anyway.

Is it unreasonable to say to a competition entrant that their first entry costs twice as much and they get a copy of the journal with it? The alternative is saying, "I am entering this comp and I'm not interested in the magazine unless I'm a winner"... Is that how to improve our writing? Yet for years that's exactly what I did.

But in the end possible entrants have a choice. They can decide they don't want to be subscribers and "therefore" the cost of the first entry is too high. If so they won't enter. As I say, that's their choice. A smaller circulation magazine with loyal readers is better than one being "picked off" by drive-by writers, IMO.

You are very right about the cost of being a serious not-yet-professional writer. I did an analysis and worked out that I had spent over $1,000 in comp entries since I first started writing. I got nowhere for years, Ian St James Awards, Real Writers etc but now I have "earned' $10,000 and meanwhile the incentive to write fresh material has made me a better writer.

We pays our money and we takes our choice, I guess.


Alex

How do I do that quote-back thingee?


alx

Before the quote type 'quote' (without the apostrophies) in square brackets. At the end of the quote type '/quote' in square brackets.

I (almost) always buy a copy of any mag I'm thinking of submitting to. Good luck with the project.

Nell.

Cool. Thanx Nell

Yes, good luck, Alex.

Can you highlight what's in the first issue? I may well subscribe.... Though I've got to do my maths first! ;-)

Ani

Alex,
I missed your reply before posting my last.

...but does it not follow that if a person is subscribing AND entering that magazine's competitions, they should have that contribution acknowledged?

I guess that whatever way the competition fees are set up it's up to the writer to decide whether to enter or not. As for subscribing and then not reading the magazine properly, I have to admit to having done that myself (apart from looking carefully at the first few stories to gain a feel of the sort of submission they're looking for), but being an avid reader it's usually the quality of the content that's to blame. Short stories can, IMO, sometimes be literary to the detriment of enjoyment. I suppose the problem is that here in the UK literary short stories are not as popular as in the US - I'm not sure how one could rectify that other than with a huge budget to produce an excellent magazine which was then given free to a selected readership until they became hooked and took out subscriptions. Hardly a viable option. So it seems that producing/publishing a small mag is a labour of love (and passion), as well as being a possible vehicle for the owner's own stories. I hope The Seventh Quark takes off and flies.

Nell.

ISSUE ONE CONTENT?

I will be announcing the contents of the first issue asap


There is a very good article on the art/craft of writing
CALLED "The Seventh Quark" which gave us the mag name.

There will be at least one (probably two) stories which won
prizes in competitions, 1-2 from friendly professionals

The winner of the First Frantic Flash (cd December 5th) will
feature (provided the standard is good enough) and ditto
the winner of the Bimonthly 2K competition (cd Dec 31st)

Runners up MAY feature but only if up to standard.

There will be a letters page, reviews etc.

AND WE ARE LOOKING FOR QUALITY STORIES NOW
INCLUDING QUALITY-GENRE-QUALITY-GENRE

as the intention is to feature a RANGE of material

We will probably feature article one of an introductory course
(aimed at improving writers)

Shape is A4, cover is full colour, high quality

Nell (and all)

It will fly. I don't fail at things and the UK needs this sort of outlet.

I believe so passionately in this. If you saw the stuff that places like The New writer WON'T publish of mine.
Articles like "The Disease of Competence" which lambast the glass-ceilinged nature of UK short-fiction...

I am frustrated by the UK market with its limited vision.

I'm a writer so that means BROKE but I've gone out and spent almost 10K setting this up so the first year (6 issues) is happening if we only have a readership of 25. This was only announced on the 18th and we have 15 subscriptions, 3 for two years (which I hope means people believe in me, know me)...

Meanwhile anyone could try the Frantic Flash (cd Dec 5th, write the story 9-11PM that night, finalists announced within 48 hours, winners soon after)... Check my website or 7thquarkmagazine.com (still being built).



alex

Alex,

I'll go ahead and subscribe. I'll use the email above. When will the first issue be out?

Ani

First issue is late January


What's yr full name?


Thanks


alex