An Online Magazine
Launching in mid-October

Claw & Quill: Modern Fables aims to be a professionally-presented “small press” webzine of speculative fiction and related articles/commentary. Specifically, C&Q is looking for stories that involve animals in a fantastic—used in the literary sense—manner. This could be stories from an animal point of view like Watership Down, the “animal people” of Cordwainer Smith’s stories and Steve Gallacci’s comics, or the lyrical magic realism of Ursula K. LeGuin’s “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight.”

The debut is planned for mid-October 2004. Being on the web, there’s no need for a fixed publishing schedule, but the goal is to have new material added on a regular basis.

Submissions

C&Q is seeking the following:

• Stories
• Poetry
• Articles
• Columns

Stories and poems can be sent without querying; articles and column ideas should be queried on first. Reviews of books, magazines and other media pieces that fit the theme are welcome. The ideal story length for us is 2,000–6,000 words; works outside that length will considered on a case-by-case basis.

Please note that the subtitle Modern Fables does not mean C&Q is looking exclusively—or even mostly—for fables in the vein of Aesop. I understand that without a “sample issue” available yet, authors might feel bewildered at just what we mean. While a bibliography of example works could be excessive, in addition to the ones above, one might also cite Rita Mae Brown’s cat detective novels, Brian Jacques’ Redwall series, Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, Pat Murphy’s Nadya, China Mieville’s King Rat, Olaf Stapledon’s Sirius, Steven Boyett’s The Architect of Sleep, John Crowley’s Beasts, Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger series, Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, with Occasional Music, Kij Johnson’s The Fox Woman, and roughly every other Charles de Lint story. (Okay, I’m exaggerating on that last one, but hopefully you get the “not just Aesop” message.)

The pay rate is projected to be a half-cent per word, with a minimum payment of $5 and a maximum of $25. (If a story is split into parts for publication, the maximum is per part as published.) We will be buying one time serial rights and a period of exclusive display (that is, you agree not to have the story appear anywhere else, online or in print, for 60 days after it appears on Claw & Quill). We will consider reprints, provided the work has not been publicly available for two years. (A subscription-only mailing list or an APA won’t be considered publicly available; a website, magazine or fanzine will be.) Authors retain all other rights to their work. We do not have a “ratings” standard, but work should be neither gratuitous in content nor excessively prurient.

We prefer text to be submitted in plain ASCII format, indicating italics and boldface by bracketing text in _underlines_ and *asterisks* respectively. Submissions in RTF, HTML and Microsoft Word DOC format are also acceptable.

Submissions, queries and requests for information should be sent to <editor@clawandquill.net>.

Illustrations

Artists who would be interested in being contacted for story illustrations should email <editor@clawandquill.net> to indicate interest. We’d like to have one illustration for each story, which will be sized to about 600×300 for reproduction, either black and white or color. Our pay rate will, as with stories, be pretty modest, expected to be about $15. However, unlike stories, C&Q only asks 10 days of exclusive appearance (basically, let us put it on our website before you put it on yours), and artists retain all other reproduction rights for the image—and we’ll link back to your website if you have one.

Artists who would be interested in having images appear on the front page of Claw & Quill are also being sought. These images must be full color, have backgrounds (i.e., not just character shots) and will be sized to 720 pixels wide and 200–250 pixels high, an extreme “landscape” presentation. C&Q isn’t asking for new work (not that we’d turn it down!) or any exclusivity—we’d like “showcase” work, again with a link back to your website. Ideally, we’d like several front page illustrations that would be in rotation. Payment for this will be the same as for a story illustration.

N.B.: We’re aware these rates are well below “commission” rates for most artists, but keep in mind that we’re only buying one-time rights—you keep the original and all print rights, and with the credit and link, we’re effectively paying you a small amount to advertise your work.

Like stories, art should be neither gratuitous nor prurient.

Finances

Claw & Quill will be funded through donations and sponsorships, similar to the links on some web comics like Kevin & Kell. Some advertising will also be accepted. The current support levels (these prices may change, in either direction, in the future):

• Subscriber—a sustaining membership with some extra perks (TBA, but the primary “perk” will be helping us to pay contributors!): $15 (annual)
• Advertiser— 160×160 sidebar banner, sold monthly: $30
• Patron—permanent page of thanks (with web or email link if requested); discounted/free Claw & Quill merchandise when available: $50 or more

Please note that you will not have to be a subscriber in order to read stories; we simply hope that if you like what you see, you will consider supporting us, and a subscription will be a low-cost way of doing so.

All transactions will be handled through PayPal, which offers the most flexible payment methods at reasonable transaction fees. (Those unable/unwilling to make donations through PayPal can work out other arrangements.) If you’re interested in being a charter patron, yes, I’m interested in talking with you.

Finances will be kept as open as possible, with a regularly-updated report page on the web site. Please note that donations are not tax-deductible; C&Q is not an incorporated entity.

If you wish, you may sign up as a “charter patron&rdquo now. Please note that this will not create an annually renewing subscription; if you give $15 or more, however, you will receive any subscriber benefits once they become available. (These are likely to include, but not be limited to, email notification of updates and full-text RSS/Atom feeds.)

For More Information

The editor/publisher of Claw & Quill is Watts Martin, former editor/publisher of the print magazines Mythagoras and Zoomorphica and author of “A Gift of Fire, A Gift of Blood” and the forthcoming collection Why Coyotes Howl. Feel free to email with questions relating to the magazine, from submission details to tech stuff.

Updated October 2