New SF Signal Mind Meld

Huzzah! I'm in a new SF Signal Mind Meld post with a bunch of cool folks, talking about our favorite convention panels! http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2014/03/mind-meld-our-favorite-convention-panels/

Guest Blog Post: Editor and Publisher Jennifer Lyn Parsons on Luna Station Quarterly

      
Hi, I’m Jennifer Lyn Parsons, editor in chief of Luna Station Quarterly. Thanks to Catherine for letting me natter on about my beloved magazine.

Luna Station Quarterly is a speculative fiction online and ebook magazine devoted to publishing and promoting emerging women writers. (Say that in one breath, whew!) LSQ just started its fifth year of publication with the stellar Issue 017.

I am also pleased to be starting this year off with a shiny new website. The spit polishing still needs to be completed before it goes live, but I'm really thrilled with how it came out. Rebuilding the site from the ground up was quite a chore! It will be worth it, though, and should be live for everyone to see soon. I’ll be sure to make announcements all over the place (mostly because I’ll be bouncing off the walls with joy).

Having a high-quality, usable website is important to me, partly because I build them for a living, but also because the reader’s experience is important to me. Presentation goes a long way in making me want to read something on my own time, and I aim to give the readers that same courtesy.

But wait, I should backtrack a bit and talk about LSQ's origins, shouldn't I?

It started about 5 years ago now, during a time when I was unemployed. I found a dearth of truly female-friendly short story venues out there and decided to step up and fill the gap. I focused on speculative fiction because it’s what I read, what I know best.

I focused on women writers exclusively because of the experiences I had while writing fan fiction a few years before. Fanfic is mostly female-authored and the stories that others were putting out there to fill in "canon" details were not only outstanding, but had a special something to them that I found missing in their male-authored counterparts. (And no, I don’t just mean the slash. LOL.)

So, combining those experiences with my web design/development skills, I suddenly found myself soliciting stories.

One of the most satisfying things about LSQ has been the consistent and universal support I've received. I was also delighted when we quickly gained global reach and, to this day, consistently receive submissions from as far away as Australia and as near as the town next door. It makes me really love the internet, trolls and all, because we can come together and support each other across any boundary. We can all cast such a wide net.

Over the years, the staff has grown from just me to a strong volunteer staff of four assistant editors plus an editorial assistant. (That would be Cheryl Ruggiero, Megan Kaleita, Iona Sharma, Andi Marquette and Danielle Perry, in no particular order)

The content has grown, too. I’m thrilled to say LSQ is a lot more diverse than it was when I started out. It’s always had interesting stories, but the breadth of style, subject matter, and the types of characters populating them now is truly diverse. It’s awesome to see these stories coming in and is very encouraging to me as a glimpse of what the future face of speculative fiction may look like.

After a few years of publishing LSQ, I decided to open up a small press to act as a parent company and home for some future projects I’ve got up my sleeve. Luna Station Press was born in 2012, continuing the Luna Station tradition of supporting women authors, but now with the ability to move beyond short stories and into poetry, non-fiction, and, of course, longer works.

It’s kind of an experiment and I get to be an explorer, navigating these new uncharted waters of the non-traditional publishing model. I’m grateful to the authors who have come along for the ride, even through the bumps and turbulence.

Right now the Press is on hiatus for submissions, but I’d love to see it have another growth spurt in the next year or so. I’ve always got great plans for expanding the Press and Quarterly, now I just need a windfall so I can quit my job and focus full-time on making them grow. Heh.

Anyone interested in checking out Luna Station Quarterly can find it at  http://lunastationquarterly.com . All issues are free to read online, or you can help us pay our authors by purchasing an ebook edition from Weightless Books at http://weightlessbooks.com/category/format/subscription/luna-station-quarterly/

The press is located at http://lunastationpress.com if you’re interested in learning more about the books I publish as well.

Thanks again, Catherine!