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Last week I said I would discuss minorities of colour in
speculative fiction, but I’m going to hold that off until next week because I
felt another issue is of more immediate importance at this time. Several weeks
ago while looking for online magazines to submit short stories to, I came
across a magazine called Buzzymag.com. I followed a link from the submission guidelines page that took me to a letter
by founder Joy Poger. In the letter, Joy talks about how the production of the
magazine has slowed down due to her taking time off to seek treatment for her cancer.
Joy is a very ambitious, hopeful woman who has put a lot of work into this
science fiction/fantasy magazine that shows in its great content.
As difficult as cancer is to deal with, Joy is a woman of
faith and is determined to pursue her plans for the magazine. But, in order to
treat her illness, she has had to put many of these plans on hiatus. How can we
support a great woman like this who is enduring a hardship? As she puts it, we
can support her by reading the magazine and letting others know about it.
Buzzymag Fiction
You can contribute to this good cause without having to give
a penny. All you need to do is read a really neat, entertaining online magazine
which BuzzyMag is. There is a lot of great stuff in there for both science
fiction/fantasy writers and fans. There’s plenty of good fiction that falls
within the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. I’m actually reading a
neat sci fi there now called “The Obvious Solution” by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro. It’s
about an AI unit that has the brain patterns of a very famous late science
fiction author. Who’s the author? Go to Buzzymag.com and read the story to find
out!
Buzzymag Non-fiction
The magazine has a lot of good non-fiction too. This
includes writing tips. One of these is an article called “Zen and the Art of
Character Creation” which even though it caters to gaming, a lot of the
character development techniques it talks about can work for fiction writing
too. BuzzyMag also offers plenty of book, TV and movie reviews as well as
interviews with authors, actors and other “people of interest”.
Other Ways to Support Buzzymag
There are other ways to support Buzzymag besides simply
reading it. Joy lists these in her letter which range from leaving comments for contributing authors and staff to sharing
on social media.
Because Joy and her staff are so backed up with submissions,
I’m holding off my own submissions to Buzzymag and am reading and engaging in
as much of the magazine as I can to help make it more well-known throughout the
Internet. But I or anyone else can’t do it alone. It takes several people,
hundreds at the very least, to promote a magazine into popularity. But, as
readers, we can do this simply by sitting in a comfortable chair either at our desktops
or mobile devices and reading the magazine’s neat articles and fiction. So give
it a try and then let me know what you think in the comments box below.
Until next time . . .
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