Return to Fantasy Magazine to read T.J. McIntyre’s Publishing Dark Faith interview with Jason Sizemore.

For more information, check out www.darkfaithanthology.com

Cover art by Michael Bielaczyc.

Aegri Somnia edited by Jason Sizemore and Gill Ainsworth

2006 Bram Stoker Award Finalist

Aegri Somnia translated literally means “a sick man’s dreams.” Loosely, it can mean “troubled dreams.” The first twelve Apex Featured Writers were tasked with writing the darkest, scariest short fiction their twisted minds could create using the theme of “aegri somnia.”

Table of Contents:
“YY” – Jennifer Pelland
“The League of Last Girls” – Christopher Rowe
“All Praise to the Dreamer” – Nancy Fulda
“Nothing of Me” – Eugie Foster
“Heal Thyself”- Scott Nicholson
“On the Shoulders of Giants” – Bryn Sparks
“Dream Takers” – Rhonda Eudaly
“Letters From Weirdside” – Lavie Tidhar
“Wishbones” – Cherie Priest
“All Becomes as Wormwood” – Angeline Hawkes
“Well of the Waters” – Mari Adkins
“Mens Rea” – Steven Savile

Remember those weekly bargain basement sales I promised you in my Summer of Love Introduction? Here’s our first one, handpicked by evil overlord, Jason Sizemore. $10 takes you back to 2006. Check out that TOC! I’ve included the rest of the store page info to give you an idea of what you’re getting yourself into. Click on the cover to head over to the Apex Bookstore!

Blurbs:
“Dark, witty, and wicked. Aegri Somnia will keep you awake for many nights.”
—MM Buckner, Philip K. Dick Award-winning author of War Surf, Neurolink, Watermind, and Hyperthought

“Aegri Somnia will give you some seriously bad dreams. These tales stab right at the heart of your subconscious, forcing you to confront demons better left undisturbed. You have been warned.”
—JA Konrath, author of Whisky Sour

Reviews:
“Every story in this anthology stands out as a great work of fiction that each author had poured his or her blood, sweat and tears into its creation. With the outstanding line-up of rich atmospheric tales, Aegri Somnia is an anthology that is sure to capture each and every reader long after the final page is turned. I highly recommend picking up a copy of Aegri Somnia and losing yourself within the nightmares contained within each well imagined page.”
Horrorworld.com

BUY NOW!

Click on the Apex mini logo to transport to the interview!

Apex Book Company’s fearless leader (managing editor/owner) has been interrogated at Hellnotes.com!!!!

No doubt, you’ve noticed the bigger than usual marketing push I’ve thrown behind DARK FAITH. Actually, I’ve thrown everything into its marketing. My spare time. My spare change. Calling in favors. Bugging the contributors to help. Forcing Maurice and Jerry to fight against their lazy nature and help out.

In the world of cliches, this is affectionately known as ‘Pulling out all the stops.’

DARK FAITH has caused me grief, various levels of adjita, heartbreak, guilt, frustration, and anger. DARK FAITH has also produced euphoria, forged new friendships, and has been an inspiration.

My heart…it aches at such a venture that vacillates between unbearable stress and unmatchable happiness.

This leads to the question of ‘Why does this book mean so much to you? Don’t you have other books to release? What about these crazy changes to APEX MAGAZINE? Why, I ask when so much other stuff is going on?’

Okay, I will confess. The subject of ‘why’ never entered my thought patterns until M.G. Ellington asked me ‘Why’ (I’ve abbreviated the real question) via an instant message. Surely, the ‘why’ had lingered in the back of my mind since the genesis of DARK FAITH, but when I turned to face the question, study it, I understood completely.

This is a big deal to me.

On the surface, it looks rather simple. And yes, before I anger any authors in our stable, I perceive every Apex book release to be a big deal. When an author or editor entrusts you to publish a piece of intellectual output that said author/editor may have spent years producing, you take the job of publishing seriously. But DARK FAITH reaches out with its little threads and infiltrates many levels of importance within Apex and me personally, more so than the usual Apex book.

I’m going to start on the business side of the equation (though I’ll be brief).

DARK FAITH will be the first major release from Apex where we’ve had a distributor. As a publisher, we’ve stepped into the scary world of book returns in exchange for a broader reach and greater things. To bandy about another cliche, I like to call it “dealing with the devil.” With that comes great risk. This success or failure of DARK FAITH literally can make or break the company. The time and money invested in this 400 page volume of fiction and for it to fail…the thought makes me nauseated.

But running a business means confronting risk. For that reason, I’ll stop right here with the business concerns.

On the personal front…

I’ve never had a project that has affected personally like DARK FAITH has. The seed that eventually produced the anthology occurred on the last day of Mo*Con IV. After two days of some rather heady discussion concerning faith, God, art, love, sex, fidelity, Jesus, other religions, atheism, sex again, and so on, the convention stragglers (aka dead dogs) rested in the front yard of Maurice’s house taking in the sun. (Yes, house. Maurice’s convention is a rather close and personal affair, although everyone is invited.)

Maurice, being the clever man that he is, took me off to the side and began a discussion about putting together a Mo*Con anthology using faith as a central theme. As far as pitches go, the timing was perfect. I was slap happy, slightly hungover, and tired. A trio of great authors (and three great people) happened to be at the party and they overheard our discussion. Suddenly, we had three big names for the anthology: Wrath James White, Tom Piccirilli, and Alethea Kontis.

From there, DARK FAITH erupted into full-blown madness. Maurice and I battled over the format of the anthology. He wanted to include Mo*Con recipes in the book. I was wanting a more practical, marketable book. While I think Alethea’s baklava is the bee’s knees, I didn’t think the recipe needed to be in a book of dark fantasy and horror.

Maurice and I felt it was important to pay all contributors a minimal professional rate. Unfortunately, I did not have the liquid funds to make that happen. A good friend stepped up and loaned me enough money so that everyone could be paid a proper and professional amount.

It took us months to find cover art. When I don’t commission cover art, I troll deviantart. Time and again we’d find a piece we (me, Maurice, and Jerry) loved and time and again we failed. The cost would be prohibitive, the artist no longer owned the rights, or the artist never responded to my queries (happened a lot). Thank goodness for Edith Walter!

Then the stories started streaming in and the project turned awesome.

An author submitted a story that brought tears to my eyes with its poignancy and reflection on a terrible time in all our lives. Another submitted a story that produced guffaws of laughter and had me in stitches for the whole story.

A person I barely know decided pull some strings and land DARK FAITH a full page feature in FANGORIA.

An artist offered up his work for free just because he believes in the work Apex is doing.

Maurice, Jerry and I, due to the many trials and tribulations of producing DARK FAITH, have become great friends, for better or for worse.

I’ve developed professional relationships with thirty-one different authors and one artist.

So here I stand on the precipice of the DARK FAITH release emotionally drained, short on funds, and nervous as hell about its success, but I have no doubt I am a better person, a better publisher for it all.

To end this essay of reflection and sharing, I’ve learned two important things: 1) Never, ever, ever allow Maurice Broaddus to pitch you a book at a convention’s dead dog party and 2) If DARK FAITH is a success I would do DARK FAITH II in a heartbeat.

Jason Sizemore is the owner and operator of Apex Publications.

Today’s regular blogger couldn’t make it to the office today, so you get me instead. Sorry, folks.

Anyways…

I’ve had a nasty creeping crud the past two weeks. My sinuses have been plugged up worse than the plumbing of a fraternity house after the campus cafeteria’s Taco ‘night’. My throat has been sore. My ears ache.

In the middle of whining about all these to my doctor, I mentioned that my five-year-old daughter had been acting out at school and tormenting her little brother. No big deal, it’s what kids her age like to do. For instance, in my early youth, I tormented my little brother. My grandest schemed involved fishing line and a house plant. I tied some of the line around the stems of the small plant that resided in our room. I ran the other end of the line along the wall and to my bed–very difficult to notice. After the lights were out and we were both in bed, I tugged the line to make the plant shake furiously.

“Hey, Joey (my brother’s name), you hear that?”

“Huh?”

“That plant, it’s making a noise.”

He wakes up. I start asking questions like “If you are a ghost, then shake the plant.” Naturally, I’d respond by shaking the plant. I worked my way up to “If you’re going to kill Joey in his sleep tonight, shake the plant.” See where this is going? Eventually, my brother freaked out and ran out of the room, screaming all the way to my parent’s bedroom.

Guess I was evil from an early age, but I’ve turned out mostly harmless.

Like me, my daughter is a bit of a prankster and has been a pain in the backside. I tell this to my doctor while expounding on my list of woes. He pauses, then says “Try this book of behavioral techniques called 1,2,3 Magic.”

My doctor likes to do this, suggesting a book for every occasion.

Naturally, with me, everything revolves back around to Apex. It occurred to me, that for any personal crisis, Apex has a book for you!

You have self-image problems? Try Jennifer Pelland’s Unwelcome Bodies!

A crisis of faith? Then take a look at Dark Faith!

Kids wearing you out? Fran Friel’s Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales should help!

Having sexual issues with your spouse or lover? Your prescription is some Wrath James White and Maurice Broaddus and their Orgy of Souls!

Personal demons bothering you? Read R. Thomas Riley’s The Monster Within Idea!

Are you a drug junkie? Perfect book for you would be Matt Wallace’s The Next Fix!

You’re turning into a zombie? Then B.J. Burrow’s The Changed will help!

See, Apex is here to cure what ails you!

Myself, I’m an evil bastard (at least my brother thinks so), so I’m off to read Descended from Darkness

One of the great aspects of being a publisher is that you get to watch talented newcomers become masters of the craft. Apex has been fortunate enough to ride the rising crests of a number of authors as they have went from fairly obscure to well-respected and more widely appreciated. I like to believe that Apex Magazine (and Apex Digest), in some small way, gave an assist.

Mary Robinette Kowal’s past three years has been quite impressive. She won the 2008 Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her short story “Evil Robot Monkey” earned a Hugo Award nomination in 2009. She’s an award-winning puppeteer. She’s a talented voice-actress currently working for Brilliance Audio. Mary is the current Secretary for the SFWA. Her first collection, Scenting the Dark, was published by the highly-regarded specialty house, Subterranean Press. Her first novel-length work, Shades of Milk and Honey, is set to be released this August by Tor Books.

I first met Mary at Chattacon in January, 2006. Her being a writer, me being an editor/publisher, we naturally talked about writing. I was impressed by her intelligence. I asked her if she’d ever sent anything to Apex Digest. I *believe* the answer was ‘one time, but it was rejected.’ I asked her to try again, I wanted to see something else from her. Mary laughed me away, dismissing her abilities.

A few months later, she submitted a fantastic story (“Cerbo en Vitro ujo”) that we published in Apex Digest.

And the rest is history…

I hope you enjoy the new novelette and short story from Mary Robinette Kowal, and that you take this opportunity to revisit a pair of chilling Kowal ‘classics’ from our magazine archives.

Why are we obsessed with the end of the world? Actually, I’d presume it’s not such a difficult question to answer if you dig around. Mortality. Spiritualism. Morbidity. Especially morbidity (at least for me!).

Zombies, floods, aliens (my favorite), asteroids, black hole, Large Hadron Colliders, more zombies, nuclear war, chemical war, crazy North Korean dictators, so on and so forth have been conjectured as the cause of our demise.

And now it’s the Mayans. Or, more precisely, ‘presumed’ aspects of the Mayan belief system.

This is why I commissioned Dr. Amy H. Sturgis to write an essay to examine the various ways the Mayan 2012 calendar rollover are interpreted by the believers out there. Dr. Sturgis has a PH.D. in Intellectual History and is a history professor at Belmont University. She has also taught at a varied list of respected universities including Pitzer College, Bryn Mawr College, Princeton University, Brown University, Duke University, Chapman University, and UCLA.

Genevieve Valentine and James F. Reilly provide fictional glimpses into what might be our non-fictional futures. Both have appeared in a wide variety of professional-level publications. I hope you enjoy their dark imaginative stories as much as I did.

I welcome our new poetry editor Lester Smith to the team. I also welcome McKenzie Johnston, Martel Sardina, and Zakarya Anwar as our new submission editors.

As usual, I’m going to end my editorial by shilling some books.

First, I’d like to announce that our monumental (to me, at least) horror anthology, Dark Faith, is available for pre-orders. If you order through our store, you will also receive a limited edition accompanying chapbook titled Dark Faith: Last Rites. This one is edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon. All the stories are new and by such genre notables as Jay Lake, Brian Keene, Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne M. Valente, Mary Robinette Kowal, Nick Mamatas, Tom Piccirilli, Gary A. Braunbeck, Wrath James White, Alethea Kontis, and others!

Second, I encourage you to buy a copy of Descended From Darkness: Apex Magazine Vol I. This anthology puts into print all the original content published digitally in Apex Magazine from June 2008-June 2009. All proceeds from Descended From Darkness goes toward the upkeep (namely, paying the magazine contributors!) of Apex Magazine. We have to have your support to keep alive the dream.

This month has been a bit of a milestone for Apex Publications. We released our first novel-length publication: The Changed by B.J. Burrow. Burrow’s book accomplishes that difficult task of being dark and humorous. It’s a zombie-comedy that should appeal to fans of Shaun of the Dead.

The book’s author is B.J. Burrow. He’s a youthful lad who lives in Texas. Nice guy. Great sense of humor. He wrote the screenplay for one of those infamous SCI-FI channel monster flicks. B.J. and his staff of undead interns have created a fun website in support of the book. I say check it out at www.itsjustzombies.com.

We welcome two Apex Magazine first-timers: James L. Sutter and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz. Both have written moving, powerful stories about two different types of love.

Finally, I’m going to do my usual hat holding and ask that you consider buying a ‘subscription’ to Apex Magazine. Donations of $10 and above receive a 10% coupon to our store that lasts for twelve months. Donations of $25 receive the coupon and a complimentary copy of anthology Descended From Darkness: Apex Magazine Vol. I.

For your convenience:
A direct link to make a subscription donation to Apex Magazine
Order a copy of The Changed

Next month we present a special “2012″ disaster issue featuring stories by Genevieve Valentine and James F. Reilly. Cultural anthopologist Dr. Amy H. Sturgis contributes an educational and entertaining essay about the “2012″ phenomenon (and whether we should really be worried!).

Till then…

Harlan County Horrors editor Mari Adkins and book publisher Jason Sizemore will be signing tomorrow at The Moonbow Coffee House in downtown Corbin, KY from 12pm-2pm.

http://www.themoonbowcoffeehouse.org/

Mari and I hope to see you there tomorrow!

We feature four short stories, an interview, and a poem.

Fiction:
“A Poor Man’s Roses” by Alethea Kontis
“To the Stars: An Astromer’s Lament” by Peter M. Ball
“Ghost Technology from the Sun” by Paul Jessup
“Yellow Warbler” by Jason Sizemore

Interview with Brandon Massey

Poem “After, Thoughts–A Pantoum” by J.C. Hay

Ekaterina Sedia searches for Brain Matter.

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