Hey everyone,

This post is going to cover a lot of ground, because we’ve been a bit lax in the way of updates lately. Buckle in, or else you’re about to get jostled.

1. A lot of you probably noticed this already, but we’re no longer operating under the name “Starward Shadows Quarterly.” You’re now viewing the Starward Shadows eZine, which is actually one of several branches of Starward Enterprises, LLC. (For now all we have is a Twitter, but a real website is coming soon, I promise). The LLC currently encompasses Starward Shadows eZine and my consulting firm Written Constellations–which also doubles as an author page for Erica Ciko.
2. That’s not all: There’s something really exciting in the work (at least for us, and maybe for some of you, too). We’re going to be setting up a bonafide publishing company under Starward Enterprises. We plan on publishing themed anthologies, short story collections, and at some point maybe even novels. We’re going to figure out the logistics of this as we go. For starters, I’m going to be the guinea pig with my first short story collection, TONIGHT THE OLD WORLD DIES (Erica Ciko, 2023).
3. Issue #3 update: We’ve finalized our selections and are making major progress at last. If you haven’t heard back on a submission, feel free to nudge us. If we don’t hear from you, we’re going to assume you sold it elsewhere or don’t care. At some point we’ll probably send out mass rejections for the rest, but who knows . . . There could be a diamond in the rough for a future issue. We don’t have an official release date for Issue 3 yet, but it should be out before the spring.
4. Future Submissions: We’ll tentatively open to submissions sometime this spring. I wouldn’t expect any big news until March at least. We’re toying with the idea of doing a themed anthology next, since we now have the freedom to release issues chaotically and without remorse . . . But there’s no news yet on what the theme will be. Expect something S&S related, or maybe Sword and Planet.
5. Here it comes . . . The one you never expected. We’ll finally, at long fucking last, have a new edition to the Flash Menagerie either this week or the next. See, we’re still alive. Sort of.

Well, that’s about all I can think of for now. Here’s some advice I wrote to make corporate weirdos question realty on LinkedIn. Maybe it will help some of you, maybe not. Who cares?

“There are people in this world who wield true power, and those who dangle carrots on strings. The second mimics the first and preys on the weak and the desperate. You can become the first by learning not to chase the carrot.

Follow your own internal compass instead, no matter how many times you feel (perhaps mistakenly) that it misled you. You may feel like a fool along that long and lonely road for weeks, months, or even years. But take pride in it. After all, every deck has a joker . . . And you’d be surprised how many people forget to pull them out before they’re far too late in the game.”

May you dream of blue aeons without end,

Erica Ciko / Morgan Eric Wormheart

(Ever play Dark Souls? It’s kind of like the good snake/bad snake thing, but both of them will eat you.)

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