Thursday, November 20, 2008

New e-zine: BEAT to a PULP

After a little urging, I decided to put together an e-zine, rounding up some help from Patti Abbott, Sandra Seamans, Glenn Gray, Albert Tucher, Anonymous-9, Terrie Farley Moran, Clare Toohey, and many others who have graciously agreed to contribute stories.

Like some of the old pulps that featured a detective story on the heels of a western and a high seas adventure, I’d like to see BEAT to a PULP follow in those footsteps, running the gamut of storytelling, a smorgasbord of short story fiction at its best, though the emphasis will be on hard boiled.

I plan to set a 1,500 word limit but, let’s face it, if Stephen King sent me a 10,000 word romance between Hungarian acrobats, I’d publish it. As a matter of fact, Patti’s story is set to kick off our e-zine with a mini-masterpiece that clocks in around 4,000 words.

Expect a debut of December 15. I will keep you posted on the progress.

If you have a story you would like to submit, please send it to: btapzine@live.com

25 comments:

Terrie Farley Moran said...

Hi David,

Great congratulations and much success.

We linked to this post from Women of Mystery.

Terrie

Scott D. Parker said...

I appreciate your broad sweep (western, detective, etc.) approach. I'll send you some material.

What are your publication dates going to be? Monthly? Bi-Monthly?

David Cranmer said...

Terrie, Thanks for the linkage and also for agreeing to contribute a story!

Scott, It's going to be along the lines of Powder Burn Flash where stories will be posted weekly. If I get more than expected, I may post several at a time. Thanks for sending something along!

Joe Boland said...

All signs point to this being great.

Travis Erwin said...

David, I might have a story for you but how about explaining the terms pulp and hard-boiled for us tender hearted women's fiction writers who shudder at such violent terms. ; )

Seriously, I've always been a tad confued as to what these mean exactly. Yeah I know, I'm showing my ignorance but I bet others are in the same boat.

Charles Gramlich said...

Cool. I love the idea and am looking forward to seeing some good pulpy action.

David Cranmer said...

Joe, Thanks!

Travis, great question.
Two excellent sites for examples of hard boiled writing are Demolition and Powder Burn Flash. Wikipedia has a good write up on the definition and history of pulp magazines. I hope this helps.

Charles, I'm hard at work trying to get this up and running.

sandra seamans said...

Hi David, I posted a link on my blog and I've got to say, I'm proud to be a part of this new zine.

Barbara Martin said...

This is really exciting, and after tweaking a few more words will be pleased to make a submission.

David Cranmer said...

Thanks Sandra!

Barbara, I would love to publish one of your stories. Send away.

Martin Edwards said...

Sounds great. Best of luck with it.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

Yeah I'm looking forward to this. I'd like to send a western now mate while i work on a short noir.

Anonymous said...

This is solid news. With the retiring of Bryon Q.'s DEMOLITION from the e'zine world, this should fill the gap nicely. Rock on.

G. B. Miller said...

Congratulations and good luck to it.

Looking forward to getting back into the groove of reading short stories again.

Maybe I can get some tips in the process.

David Cranmer said...

Thanks Martin!

Archavist, I've yet to receive a western. Very cool... I'm looking forward to it.

Kieran Shea, Demolition was one of the best. Bryon set the bar high.

Georgie B, From what I've read on your blog, you would be a natural at writing shorts.

Anonymous said...

David: Looking forward to the launch.

John McAuley

Anonymous said...

I'm looking forward to reading Beat To A Pulp and I'm glad you are mixing up the genres. Good luck.

Reid said...

Sounds good. Good luck!

David Cranmer said...

Kimberly Suta, I will check out your site. Who couldn't use 2,000 smackeroos these days.

John McAuley, Thank you. So far, the submissions have been flowing in.

RReynolds, I think various genres really shake it up nicely.

Reid, Gracias and I will zip over and check out your blog.

the Bag Lady said...

Well, you picked a terrific launch date, anyway! Dec 15th is the Bag Lady's birthday!
Looking forward to your e-zine! Congratulations.

Scott D. Parker said...

David,

I just happened upon a western idea. It may be my first submission for you.

David Cranmer said...

the Bag Lady, Well first, an early happy birthday to you. I went over to Bag Lady's Blather and I'll be back to check out more of your enjoyable blog. Thanks for stopping by!

Scott, I'm looking forward to your submission. I regularly go to the Texas Pulp Writer and I know it will be a good'un.

G. B. Miller said...

David,

Thanks for that Wikipedia link. It gave some very good information on those genres you particular favor.

Nan Higginson said...

BEAT to a PULP sounds like a challenge to folks missing the great old mysteries where men were like Mickey Spillane and women often turned out to be tarts with hearts of gold - I love those old stories!

Need to bone up on the style - glad to have the chance to read in the pulp genre, and hopefully will offer a few stories of my own, once my brain gets reoriented!

Thanks for the coming good reads and the chance to sit in the writer's seat!

Write On!
Nan

David Cranmer said...

Georgie B, I'm glad it helped and if you check Sandra's blog, My Little Corner, she has another helpful link.

Nan, I'm very excited by all the submissions that are coming in and I'm looking forward to your contribution.