Fusion Fragment
@fusionfragment.bsky.social
3.5K followers 270 following 1.5K posts
SF mag from Canada | 2007-2013, 2020- | Always open to submissions Publisher of Saros SF For all of your various FF needs: http://linktr.ee/fusionfragment
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fusionfragment.bsky.social
ICYMI: Some 2025 story submission trends (so far)
fusionfragment.bsky.social
SUNDAY STATS THREAD: Time for a quick look at some early results to our 2025 FF Submitter's Survey! First up, let's check out the frequency of subgenres and how they stack up against 2024 rankings. Here's the top 10:

1/
FF Submission Stats - Subgenre Frequency

#1: AI / Robots, 9.9%. 2024 Rank: #3, 7.4%
#2: Philosophical SF, 9.6%. 2024 Rank: #6T, 6.3%
#3: Horror, 7.7%. 2024 Rank: #3T, 7.6%
#4: Dystopian, 7.3%. 2024 Rank: #2, 8.0%
#5 (Tie): Magical Realism, 6.5%. 2024 Rank: #11T, 3.6%
#5 (Tie): Mundane SF, 6.5%. 2024 Rank: #13T, 2.7%
#5 (Tie): Science Fantasy, 6.5%. 2024 Rank: #6T, 6.3%
#8: Apocalypse, 6.1%. 2024 Rank: #1, 11.2%
#9 (Tie): Aliens, 5.0%. 2024 Rank: #5, 7.1%
#9 (Tie): Experiments / Inventions, 5.0%. 2024 Rank: #6T, 6.3%
fusionfragment.bsky.social
43. Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice

long, dangerous journeys / returning to a home you've never been to / we'll always be here
The cover shows a forest. Some of the tree trunks have red fabric tied around them.
fusionfragment.bsky.social
Oops wrong number! I think you want @uncannymagazine.bsky.social and not me!
Reposted by Fusion Fragment
pseudopod.org
Same. But honestly, anything Ai-generated is likely to be rejected just purely on the basis that it’s *mundane*. These LLMs don’t produce anything original or interesting. They can’t. Only humans do that. Use your delightful terrible human brain.
bcsmagazine.bsky.social
Please know that at BCS, it's hugely important to us to not have 'false positives'. We don't treat subs or submittors as AI unless we're sure. We're not looking at em-dashes or key words. We're doubly careful with English as Second Language subs. Any sub we're not sure if it's AI, we treat as human.
gothydellamorte.bsky.social
My only fear with this is being accused when I use no AI but do use stuff like m dashes that are frequently marked AS AI but I think people who make their jobs writing will probably be better equipped than most.
fusionfragment.bsky.social
Time, Energy, Care, and Audacity. IMO, those are the things you need to run a mag. That's all it takes (and thank goodness, because that's still A LOT) and I hope people know that, because I'd love to see more mags out there to find places for all these stories to live!
fusionfragment.bsky.social
...who had somehow earned the right to say what was good and what was bad. But, as I'll say to anyone who'll listen, there's no such thing as good and bad stories. There's only stories you love and stories you don't. And you don't need credentials to publish the stories you love.
fusionfragment.bsky.social
Anyway, when I think back to launching FF 1.0 in 2007 and 2.0 in 2020, at both of those points I thought "Who am I to do this? Who says I should be allowed to pick which stories get to published?"

And I very nearly talked myself out of it, all because I thought that there were certain people...
fusionfragment.bsky.social
I'm shouting about this because of one of the things I said during my Chill-n-Chat at Flights of Foundry last weekend: There are so many stories out there that deserve to find a good home, and just not enough publication slots. And the more different types of editors to publish them, the better!
fusionfragment.bsky.social
And that manifests itself in the way FF runs, where it's very much a direct-to-pub editing process. Any more detailed editing is really limited to the occasional R&R offer I'll send out for stories I think are almost there.
fusionfragment.bsky.social
This resonates with me because I'm very much just Some Guy. I had a BA in English Lit and had sold a couple stories to semi-pro and token paying markets, but I'd never edited anything besides my own work. Hell, I'd never even been in a writer's group and done the whole critique thing.
fusionfragment.bsky.social
Piggybacking on this thread (read the whole thing btw, lots of great points) to say how important this is. If you want to start a mag, you only need 3 things:
1) the time and spoons to give it the energy it deserves
2) the desire to support writers and the writing community
3) the audacity!
kercoby.bsky.social
Reminder: anyone can found and edit a SFF magazine.

There’s no regulatory body or hoops. You create the position for yourself.

Many of these people are amazing—

But mag Editors are just guys who decided to spend a lot of time on something they love.

Just people.
fusionfragment.bsky.social
Exact release date is still TBD, but now that it's October it's time to get excited for FF#26, which you'll be able to get before the month is through!
The cover of FF#26. On it, a woman's face is surrounded by shards of glass, each of which contain an eye of their own, and broken fragments of a noh mask. 

A list of contributors is overlaid on the image:
A.D. Sui
S.L. Harris
D.A. Straith
Leo Oliveira
Cressida Roe
Nkereuwem Albert
Emma Russell-Trione
Nana Afadua Ofori-Atta
fusionfragment.bsky.social
Tuesday evening music celebration post: The production of FF runs on good tunes, so here are the five albums that spent the most time on repeat at FF HQ last week.
Albums on repeat at FF HQ:

#1: Emily Wolfe - The Blowback
#2: Yumi Zouma - Willowbank
#3: 50 Foot Wave - Golden Ocean
#4: The Crane Wives - Foxlore
#5: Wet Leg - Moisturizer
fusionfragment.bsky.social
I know, it's basically impossible to go wrong! I wish there was a magic "random story" button in their archives.
fusionfragment.bsky.social
Love the SH archives! In addition to all the stories Maria called out, I'll piggyback on this to drop two of my SH faves:

"Collateral Memory" by @followthelede.bsky.social: strangehorizons.com/fiction/coll...

"Secrets of the Kath" by @fatimataqvi.bsky.social: strangehorizons.com/fiction/secr...
fusionfragment.bsky.social
Important distinction, for whoever needs to hear it today:

A rejection of your story is not a rejection of you as a writer!