William Emmons Books: One Year In

State of the Business, Spring-Summer Con Schedule, Publishing Some Zines, Etc.

Good day, dear readers! On this day last year, I began writing William Emmons Books. I initially started this publication as a vehicle to promote my boutique online business selling vintage science fiction and fantasy paperbacks and magazines etc. As the limits of that business model became apparent to me, the newsletter soon became more of a literary endeavor.

I like connecting with people by selling them books. You could end that sentence before the word “by” though. My natural inclination is more truth seeker than merchant. I am in the 15th month of a quasi-systematic study focused mostly on old American magazine science fiction. I have worked myself into a nice groove reading science fiction magazines from the early 1950s. Complementing this, I am also reading freestanding novels and fantasy and weird fiction.

The State of the Business

On good weeks, my life is structured around taking a trip or two to the post office to fulfill eBay orders and reporting back on my studies in this newsletter. Over the past six weeks sales have ebbed to a trickle as I’ve been more focused on reading and writing than keeping my eBay store well stocked. Reflecting this change of focus, I have activated paid subscription pledges. One very generous reader has pledged $100 per annum. If I can get pledges that would shake out to $250 a year, I will activate paid subscriptions. If you like what I’m doing here, please consider pledging today.

Alternatively, if you’d like to support me with a one-time gratuity, you can do so via Buy Me A Coffee.

William Emmons, Book Critic?

I recently placed a review of Erika Swyler’s new science fiction novel We Lived On The Horizon at Ancillary Review of Books. Here’s what I thought:

At first blush, it seems like Erika Swyler’s new novel We Lived On The Horizon is science fiction for our times, because the central character is an AI. This topical feel is belied by the fact that the AIs in the novel resemble actual people more than they do our own LLMs. Therefore, they don’t evoke the contemporary perils and potentials raised by LLMs. Instead Swyler’s AIs provide a fictive backdrop for the exploration of two themes whose relevance recurs across time: coming of age and revolution. As an AI bildungsroman, the novel is a moving character study. As a speculative meditation on a revolution against a post-apocalyptic society structured around indebtedness, something is lacking.

Read the whole review here.

I hope this is my first step into a broader world of people reading and writing about speculative literature. I am working on another review for ARB and am trying to send out book review pitches elsewhere.

I must confess to being a neophyte and not really knowing where to pitch. If you have any leads on this front, hit me up. No journal is too obscure.

Spring-Summer Cons

I will be going to a couple big (or big-to-me, anyway) conventions this year. I’ll be at BaltiCon in Baltimore which is taking place May 23-26. Don’t look for me in the dealer’s room. I won’t be there. Indeed, I’m not totally sure how much of the con I’ll be present for because I’ll be splitting my time in Baltimore between the con, a bachelor party, and Maryland Deathfest. I mainly mention that I’m going BaltiCon because my analytics tell me the nearby District of Columbia is one of the more represented U.S. jurisdictions among my readership. If anyone reading this would like to try to meet up at BaltiCon hit me up.

Of course, my big con of the year is PulpFest which will be held August 7-10 near Pittsburgh. I want to beat the drum for this con as a great place to shop for old books and magazines and connect with people who are into that kind of thing. This year’s theme is “Masters of Blood and Thunder” marking the sesquicentennial of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Wallace, and Rafael Sabatini.

Depending on how you count, PulpFest is four cons in one as it hosts three cons within the main con. For me, the big draw of PulpFest has always been FarmerCon, the annual gathering of devotees of Philip José Farmer. I’ve also had fun meeting Edgar Rice Burroughs aficionados under the auspices of ERBFest. It’s not really my thing but PulpFest also features Doc Con, an annual convocation of fans of pulp hero Doc Savage.

Last year I did brisk business in the dealer’s room. I haven’t figured out what if any hat I’ll be wearing at PulpFest this year. I may return as a vintage bookseller or set up as a different project I’ll discuss below. I may also take in the con as a vacation.

William Emmons, Zine Publisher?

Lately I have been getting in to print small press periodicals. This recent interest, which is informed by my personal history as an aging punk and my involvement with FarmerFan, has inspired me to want to get back into publishing zines.¹

I want to publish a zine called Mutation or Death devoted to science fiction, fantasy, horror, and weird fiction. I want it to have a companion zine called Weird Cry devoted to pulp fiction. I’m not sure of my timeline for publishing either of these, how long they will be, or the frequency with which they will be issued. In any case, I took the preliminary step of buying a domain name so now I practically have to publish them.²

A Soft Opening For Zine Submissions

Are you interested in publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or artwork in a zine with no following or circulation? I am opening submissions to the forthcoming zines Mutation or Death and Weird Cry to readers of William Emmons Books.

These will be fanzines. The business model will be to lose money or break even so I will not be offering compensation to writers beyond contributor copies at this time. I may be able to come up with a small honorarium for artists. Creators will retain the copyright to their contributions. If you can work under such conditions please see what I am looking for below. If you cannot work under such conditions, I do not begrudge that.

For Mutation or Death, I am looking for short fiction (nothing beyond novelette length), poetry, book reviews (~750-1000 words), short critical essays, and human-generated art. The focus is broadly science fiction, fantasy, horror, and weird fiction. The editorial line follows my own idiosyncratic and subversive tastes. I like stories that are heady, idea-driven, mood-driven, and/or unsettling. I like it when things go there. I like talking animals. I like sword and sorcery that is actually about something. Trick endings and ghost stories are hard sells.

For Weird Cry, I am looking for short fiction (nothing beyond novelette length), poetry, reviews of fiction originally published in pulp magazines (~750-1000 words), short critical and historical essays about pulp magazines and their contents, and human-generated art. The fiction, poetry, and art should take some inspiration from the pulps. In a way, this zine is broader than Mutation or Death as the pulps encompassed many genres and authors as different as Zane Grey and Clark Ashton Smith. I still plan to curate it to suit my tastes. I mention Grey and Smith in particular because I like rich prose. I like Norville Page better than Lester Dent. I like stories that are frenetic and elemental. Looking to the pulps doesn’t preclude being literary, weird, and even a little unhinged.

Send up to two submissions or pitches at a time to editor@mutationordeath.com. Simultaneous submissions to other venues are fine. I don’t foresee being unable to reply to submissions within a week under current circumstances. If I haven’t gone back and edited this post to strike through this text, submissions are still open.

1. My zine history: In college, I contributed to an anarchist zine with an article about how Trotskyism is bad. I am no longer an anarchist but somehow I still think Trotskyism is bad. Later the two issue run of my early 20s zine Space Zine got me investigated by the FBI when I tweeted injudiciously from its Twitter account. Later still my friend Josh [last name redacted to protect the innocent] and I put out a single issue of a zine that may or may not have been titled Weird Cry and that featured a never completed serialized story by me. I do not retain copies of any of the foregoing. Thanks to the hard work and solicitude of my friend Jason Aiken, I have managed to contribute to every issue of FarmerFan and retain several copies of the only issue of it that saw a print run.

2. When I say “I” in this sentence and in the section below it, I am referring to myself as the owner and sole member of Mutation or Death Press LLC. This LLC is opening submissions to the readers of the newsletter owned by William Emmons Books, a separate sole proprietorship.