So last week, I was dinking around with some images, making a cover mock-up for a Star Wanderers short story that’s currently on submission to Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. This is what I came up with:
The model is Devon Jade, photographed by Aaron Tyree on Deviantart (CC BY 2.5). The background image is variable star RS Puppis, photographed by NASA (public domain).
The story itself is set in the same universe as Star Wanderers, around the same timeline. It’s very short, only 15 pages, and follows the coming of age and loss of innocence of a girl on an isolated space station in the Far Outworlds. It’s on submission to the major SF&F markets right now, but in a few months I anticipate that it will be available to self-publish. I think I blogged about it when I wrote the story last year.
So far, I’ve sent it out to Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, F&SF, Strange Horizons, IGMS, and Escape Pod. All of them except for IGMS have rejected it so far, which isn’t too unusual for short stories (you tend to accrue a LOT of rejections before anything gets published). After I hear back from IGMS, I’ll probably send it out to a couple more pro markets and a handful of semi-pro markets before I publish it myself.
I’ve got to be honest, I’m really really tempted just to put it out right now. But I want to give the magazines a try first. I can always self-publish it after I’ve exhausted all the markets, but once it’s self-published, none of the magazines will take it. Better to be patient and keep it on submission for now.
You can probably expect to see this story sometime early next year, either in a sci-fi magazine (fingers crossed), or on Amazon. When I do publish it, I’ll make it free for my email list subscribers.
