by Derek Bowen
Welcome to Myths Inscribed, an online fantasy magazine created by members of the Mythic Scribes fantasy writing community. The purpose of the magazine is to provide a venue for quality fantasy writing of all sorts—with a very broad interpretation applied to the term “fantasy.”
While Myths Inscribed was created by members of Mythic Scribes, it is not intended to be for members of Mythic Scribes. Myths Inscribed is not an “in-group” vanity vehicle; it is not a showcase for community members. Submission to the magazine is open to all and is competitive. While members of Mythic Scribes may enjoy some advantage of access, in that they were the authors who learned about the magazine first, they receive no special consideration when it comes time for us to determine which submissions are accepted. For the future, we hope that if there is “more” content from Mythic Scribes members, it is because contributors to Myths Inscribed are attracted to and join the forum community, not because they were already part of it when they submitted to the magazine.
That covers who the magazine is “for” in terms of contributors. In terms of readers: it’s for everyone. We certainly neither intend nor desire that our readership be limited to the Mythic Scribes community—again, we have no objection to attracting people to join the community, though that isn’t a requirement. We’ll be perfectly happy if all you do is read the magazine. Each issue. Ideally, repeatedly. So tell all your friends, your neighbors, your family, your familiars… you get the idea.
As probably comes as no surprise, our ambitions for the magazine considerably exceed what we have available for the inaugural issue. We have a number of features which we hope will become at least semi-regular over the long term
Warp and Weft: This is the feature we’re most proud of, and the one that constitutes the greatest distinction between Myths Inscribed and any other magazine. Here’s a little secret for all you authors out there who hate receiving rejection letters: editors hate sending them. We have no choice—there’s only so much space in a magazine, and there are always more contributions than can be published. This becomes especially painful when we are faced with stories which are “almost but not quite” where we want them to be. So we’ve decided to see if we can do something about them. We will select certain of our “almost” submissions, and invite the authors to engage in extensive one-on-one revision “workshops” with one of our editors. Each issue, we will print one of these stories under the “Warp and Weft” heading—a demonstration of our commitment to aiding writers in their development, both as artisans and professionals.
Your Quest, Should You Choose to Accept It: Both the Mythic Scribes community and, from time to time, the magazine itself, will run writing challenges. Worthy winners will be granted places of prominence within our publication. Unless specified in the challenge, alliteration is optional.
Elder Scrolls: This is an irregular section set aside for those occasions when a staff member has a story he’d like to submit to the magazine. This is not to give staff members free rides for inclusion; rather, it is to make it clear that, whenever such a story does appear, it’s always an extra—that is, no other contributor got “bumped” from the magazine in order to include this story.
Mythic Tradition: A semi-regular column dealing with topics in real-world mythology, fairy tales and folklore. These will range from the presentation of a single story or character, up to cross-cultural analysis of common themes. Sometimes, the column may complement a thematically-related story, or an issue will be built around a particular mythic theme.
On a Lighter Note: This will be a small, hopefully regular section at the end of the magazine, presenting spoofs, satires, and whatever else dislocates our funny bones. (No, not “tickles”: it takes more than that to get our attention. We all have pretty high pun tolerances.)
There will be more. Those are just the items we have firmly on our planning board. Others will be added as they get worked up and worked in, so stay tuned. Though if we do our job correctly, we have little doubt you will.