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I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For |
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Written by Michelle Pendergrass
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Tuesday, 26 January 2010 16:32 |
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I’d be a terrible poser if I acted like U2 was one of my favorite bands. (Sorry Heather) However, as I sat down to write this post, that song did come to mind and I did pull it up and listen to it. Because right now, it’s truth as far as The Midnight Diner goes. So I’m going to lay it all out there and hope that you will rise to the occasion and make it so. Submissions were extended to January 15 and maybe I should have addressed the issues then, but I didn’t think about it. Live and learn, right? So the 15th came and went and I looked at the state of submissions and noticed a huge discrepancy in categories. Some categories are overflowing but most are gaunt and starving. We have plenty of horror, paranormal, and hard-boiled stories. They are abundant. Everything else? Not so much. Like almost nothing. A drought. We need you to submit in these categories: Jesus vs. Cthulhu Monster Shatner on a Plane Archetypical Exploration The One That Happens in a Diner Weird Western Conspiracy/Intrigue Adventure Aliens/UFO Weird War I am committed to producing a quality publication and right now, I feel that the scales are stacked and there isn’t much variety. Take a look at the list and get going! As for the new deadline, I wanted to give you until the end of March, but then I looked at my April calendar and I’ll be traveling three-quarters of the month and I know I will not be able to read the last minute submissions, not to mention start trying to produce this issue, so to save my sanity, I’m going to go out on a limb here and set the new submission deadline for May 15, 2010. I realize that means we’ve kept submissions open for two months shy of a year and I understand we’ve not made decisions on stories submitted over the past six months, but I’d rather publish a quality, diversified issue than try to make it work with mostly three categories. In the end, this is better for you, author, because you want your story in a publication that cares. * * * Michelle Pendergrass is Editor-in-Chief of The Midnight Diner and hopes you consider submitting a story in one of the desolate categories above. |
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Submission Deadline Extended |
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Written by Michelle Pendergrass
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Tuesday, 01 December 2009 18:09 |
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We've extended the deadline for submissions to January 15, 2010! |
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Written by Michelle Pendergrass
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Friday, 17 July 2009 21:50 |
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Third Edition of The Midnight Diner Submissions are Open!
The Midnight Diner is a hardboiled genre anthology with a Christian slant. No ABA restrictions on God, no CBA restrictions on reality. Didactic preachy works are dismissed unceremoniously; we're looking for high quality works that are uncompromising in craft, content, and quality.
Submissions for the third edition of The Midnight Diner are now open at the Relief Writer's Network. Here's what we're looking for; please read carefully. Submissions that are completely out of gamut will be subject to ridicule and immediate rejection.
1. Unpublished Short Fiction up to 10,000 words. Simultaneous submissions okay, but you need to pull your submission ASAP if it gets accepted elsewhere.
2. Submissions are only accepted via the Online Submission System at the Relief Writers Network. www.reliefjournal.com Absolutely NO email or snail mail read or even remotely considered unless your name is Stephen King and you wrote The Stand. Anne Rice, Neil Gaiman, and F. Paul Wilson are also exceptions. Everybody else, get with the program. There's a big button at the top of this website that says Submit Your Writing. If you email me asking where the link is, expect severe sarcasm.
3. Categories for Submisisons are:
Category Examples (for clarification only)
Horror - Stephen King, Anne Rice, Dean Koontz, Peter Straub
UFO/Aliens - X-Files, Fringe, Coast To Coast AM
Conspiracy Millennium - X-Files, Fringe, Coast To Coast AM
Hardboiled - Detective/Crime Raymond Chandler, Janet Evanovich, F. Paul Wilson
That One That Happens in Diner - All categories - just has to happen in a diner
Jesus Vs. Cthulhu - No posers. If you're submitting in this category, you had better be familiar with Lovecraft or Derleth's work, and the piece should reflect it.
Paranormal/Archetypal Exploration Neil Gaiman, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton
Weird Western- Cowboys and Indians meet something weird
Weird War - In honor of all our soldiers in all branches of the armed forces
Monster Stories - Dracula, Frankenstein, Godzilla, Buffy - yes, you can submit your
Christian vampire story here
Adventure - Indiana Jones, Dan Brown
Shatner On A Plane - Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Night Gallery
Note: Combinations of Genres are encouraged. For example, a hardboiled detective investigating a paranormal crime, or a monster story that has a Twilight Zone twist. You may and probably should select multiple categories when submitting your work.
4. Compensation: Three Editor's Choice awards will be selected. Prize money for Editor's Choice is a hundred bucks. All categories are eligible. Everybody else gets their names up on Amazon, a contributor's copy, bragging rights, and the possibility of being on the Diner staff for the next edition. Approximately 21 stories will be selected for publication.
5. No hardcore sci-fi. I don't want to read stories that I have to learn a new vocabulary or solar system for. I don't want to read about what happened after the fourth war for Alpha Centuari, Beta Centauri, or any other Centauri. Besides, you can't fit a starship into a Diner. Other places are more suited for these genres, i.e. the incredible site at raygunrevivial.com for Sci-fi helmed by Diner-approved editor Johne Cook.
6. No sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Do you know what happens when you let ogres and trolls in Diners? You will be billed for any messes they make.
7. Know what we've published in the last edition. The Diner is available on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and of course on the Relief store.
8. Spiritual warfare is allowed, but should have an original twist. Absolutely no shining swords - you can poke somebody's eye with one of those in a diner, and we don't have the insurance for that sort of thing.
9. The Diner is not for children, or the faint of heart. Jesus dressed up as Thor, a whore who moonlights as an exorcist, a bouncer at a strip club, and more offbeat characters were regulars in the first edition of the Diner. This is not Guideposts or your Sunday School quarterly. Pansy sanitized work will be unceremoniously dismissed. Do not send me work where gangbangers say things like, "Golly gee, Beav, what ever are we going to do with this swell crack?"
10. Submissions will tentatively close December 1, 2009. Do not send queries. Submit your work.
11. Release Date for the third edition of Coach's Midnight Diner is April 2010. The Third Edition will be available in print, soft cover and perfect bound in a 7"ishx10"ish trim size at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and several other venues. It will also be available in Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader format.
Sit down, order some coffee, and let's see what you've got. Give me your best shot.
Your Midnight Waitress,
Michelle Pendergrass
Editor-In-Chief | Coach's Midnight Diner
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 23 July 2009 23:24 )
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The Back From The Dead Edition Authors! |
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Written by Coach Culbertson
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Tuesday, 20 January 2009 21:41 |
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 As proprietor of the Midnight Diner, I am extremely honored to announce the authors for the 2nd Diner, The Back From The Dead Edition. We have first-time authors like Editor's Choice Award Winner Siobhan Shier, veteran authors like Daniel G. Keohane, best-selling tech author and editor Brett McLaughlin, and Bram Stoker Award-winner Kim Paffenroth, and Jesus Vs. Cthulhu Edition Diner Alumni authors Chris Mikesell, Mike Duran, and Michael Medina. I guarantee you will want to read this edition cover to cover, because the last story in the layout is just as shocking as the first. Here they are, in order of appearance in this 2nd Diner:
 | Daniel G. Keohane
Box
Editor's Choice
Daniel G. Keohane’s fiction has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies over the years, including Cemetery Dance, Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest, Shroud Magazine (coming soon), The Pedestal Magazine, Gothic.Net, and many others. Solomon's Grave, his debut novel, is slated for release in 2009 by Edge / Dragon Moon Press in 2009, after being previously released in both Germany (as Das Grab des Salomon) and Italy (as il Segreto di Salamone). An active member of the HWA and SFWA, Dan lives with his family in Massachusetts, where he is always at work on the next novel.
|  | Siobhan Shier
Nowhere
Editor's Choice
Siobhan Shier is an author, artist and horse owner who spends her free time riding out on the trail and attempting to ignore her cell phone. With a degree in Computer Science and a technical background, Siobhan discovered writing stories was more fun then any lines of code. "Nowhere" is Siobhan's first published short story, and is the inspiration for her work in progress: Every Nowhere, a book that challenges the concepts of good, evil, and reality.
|  | M. L. Archer
Paint it Black
Editor's Choice
A native of Los Angeles, M. L. Archer wound up living in seven major cities and points in between as the member of a fundamentalist religious cult. One day, the leader of this cult bragged that he so renewed his mind to the Word that he no longer even dreamed. Ms. Archer was reminded of 'The Haunting of Hill House,' where Jackson described the house as insane...because it too never dreamed. This made her realize she was in the wrong place and escaped. She remains convinced that God can use fiction to reach people, even in the strangest places. And yes, she plays the violin. |  | Chris Mikesell
Hinky Jenks
Diner Alumni
Chris Mikesell has been a potential Publisher's Clearinghouse winner twenty years running. Since Ed McMahon seems in no hurry to stop by, he has filled the time in recent years writing and teaching English. His poetry, short stories, and satire have appeared in Infuze, DKA (now a part of Mindflights), Raygun Revival, Fear&Trembling, and The Wittenburg Door. His short story "In R'lyeh, Jesus Walks"; appeared in the debut edition of Coach's Midnight Diner. The opening 30 pages of his zombie novel placed second in the Association of Christian Fiction Writers 2008 Genesis contest.
His writing family, The Misfits, live in Arizona, Indiana, Tennessee, and Texas. He and his actual family (wife: Dina, son: Philip) live in Plano, Texas. His online home is mikesell.blogspot.com.
|  | Greg Mitchell
Flowers for Shelly
Greg Mitchell likes monsters. So much so, in fact, that he devotes a great deal of time to writing about them. When he’s not writing about monsters, he can be found with his wife Meghan and their daughter Jo Beth, sharing tickles and lots of laughter. In his Christian Horror series “The Coming Evil”, Greg mixes the worlds of fear and faith into an unlikely concoction that could very well spell the unraveling of the cosmos as we know it. Check him out at www.thecomingevil.com .
|  | Maggie Stiefvater
The Denial
All of Maggie Stiefvater's life decisions have been based around her inability to be gainfully employed. Talking to yourself, staring into space, and coming to work in your pajamas are frowned upon when you're a waitress, calligraphy instructor, or technical editor (all of which she's tried), but are highly prized traits in novelists and artists. She's made her living as one or the other since she was 22. She now lives an eccentric life in the middle of nowhere, Virginia with her charmingly straight-laced husband, two kids, and neurotic dogs. She is the author of LAMENT (Flux 08), BALLAD (Flux '09), and SHIVER (Scholastic '09).
|  | Mike Duran
En Route to Inferno
Diner Alumni, Contributing Editor
Mike was born and raised in Southern California, where he lives with his wife and four grown children. In between working construction, he’s managed to land stories in places like Raygun Revival, Fear and Trembling, Forgotten Worlds, Alienskin, Infuze Magazine and Dragons, Knights and Angels. His essay, The Ark, recently received Editor’s Choice award in Relief Journal 2.3 He contributes monthly commentary at Novel Journey, one of Writer’s Digest 101 Most Helpful Websites for Writers. And though his website is named Decompose (www.mikeduran.com), it has very little to do with corpses or compost.
|  | William Brian Johnson
Tim's Holy Hamburgers
If Brian Johnson were rich, he'd be a profession adventurer; but since he isn't, he chases storms around the Kansas Prairie and writes. Tim’s Holy Hamburgers is his third published short story.
|  | Tom Barlow
Schadenfreude
Other stories by Ohio writer Tom Barlow may be found in The Apalachee Review, Hobart, The Duck & Herring Pocket Field Guide, Hiss Quarterly, Thieves Jargon, the Steel City Review, and other magazines, and the print anthologies Book of Dead Things, Desolate Places, and Hard-boiled Horror. His story "My Daughter of Many Colours" was recently named a Notable Story for 2007 by the Million Writer's Award, and his story "Call Me Mr. Positive," which appears in the anthology "Best of the Intergalactic Medicine Show," was called "brilliantly sardonic" by Publisher's Weekly. Tom is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop and a lead writer for the most visited personal finance blog on the Internet, AOL's WalletPop. |  | Barry Ozeroff
Bum Deal
Barry Ozeroff is a 22-year police veteran who works for the Gresham Oregon police department. A former SWAT sniper and the recipient of Gresham PD’s Medal of Valor, Barry is a full-time traffic motorcycle officer and fatal crash investigator. He also serves as the department's lead hostage negotiator and is a crisis intervention officer. For the past ten years, Barry has ridden off-road motorcycles while patrolling Gresham's many parks, trails, and off-road areas. Barry lives in the Portland area with his wife and the youngest three of his six children, and also has two grandchildren over whom he dotes incessantly. Keep up with Barry at www.barryozeroff.com |  | Bob Freeman
Queen's Gambit Bob Freeman is an author, artist, and paranormal adventurer who lives in rural Indiana with his wife Kim, son Connor, and sister-in-law Cassie. Bob is the author of the novels Shadows Over Somerset and Keepers of the Dead, and the collection Widdershins: Dark Prose and Darker Poetry. His short fiction and poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Legends of the Mountain State 2, Dark Harvest, and the forthcoming Death in Common. He is a member of Indiana Horror Writers, Midwest Paranormal Writers, The Aleister Crowley Society, as well as being the founder and senior investigator for Nighstalkers of Indiana, field investigator for ADCI, and the Hoosier State's Doorways Investigation Group liaison. |  | Jason M. Waltz
With the Brightness of His Coming
Thirty-five plus years spent with his nose in a book has given Jason - besides the alternate personality found at von Darkmoor’s thoughts - an insatiable taste for quality reading material. And a crooked nose. Reader of many words, struggling writer of a few, Jason has been a long-time inhabitant of the worlds of fantastical fiction and an eager pupil at the feet of its illustrious members. The man behind Rogue Blades Entertainment, he longs for fiction thick with action, adventure, heroism, and hope. He aims to rejuvenate the world of reading by delivering a shot of adrenaline to every reader, author, artist, and publisher he meets.
|  | Marianne Halbert
The House of Abandoned Characters
Marianne Halbert is an attorney in Indianapolis, IN. She has published one short story, "Invisible Fences", which appeared in Indiana Authors 2007: Inspiration from the Heartland (New Century Publishing), and her short story "The Last Spectre" will appear in Dark Distortions II, due out in 2009. Her writing is a bit ecclectic, as she can't help what pops into her head. Most of her stories seem to combine mystery, suspense, quirkiness, poignance and the unexpected. "The House of Abandoned Characters" is dedicated to Olivia and Chloe, who she hopes will always strive to be the authors of their own life story.
|  | D. S. Crankshaw
The Office of Second Chances
D. S. Crankshaw is an Electrical Engineer in Boston. As his job doesn’t give him much of a creative outlet, he's found other ways to indulge his writing obsession, including his blog, Back of the Envelope, its associated Storyblogging Carnival, and a writing group he leads at his church. He's previously published short stories in Aoife’s Kiss and the e-zine Residential Aliens.
|  | Kim Paffenroth
Field of Blood
Kim Paffenroth is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Iona College. His nonfiction work, Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, 2006), won the 2006 Bram Stoker Award. Since then he has been writing zombie fiction, including Dying to Live: A Novel of Life among the Undead (Permuted, 2007), and Dying to Live: Life Sentence (Permuted, 2008). Check out his Gospel of the Living Dead blog at http://gotld.blogspot.com/.
|  | Virginia Hernandez
Small Accidents of God
Virginia Hernandez, youth minister's wife AND writer/reader of horror, wishes those two things didn't seem mutually exclusive to most church members. She lives in Florida with her three terrific kids and spectacular husband, who have all adjusted to her weird tendencies and reading addiction. She is tired of all the "almosts" in the writing world and is therefore thrilled to have her first short story published.
|  | Jerry Gordon
9th Ward
Jerry Gordon couldn’t figure out a way to be an astronaut, film director and superhero in the same lifetime, so he settled on writing about them. His work has been published in InfoWorld, Indie Review, and the Midnight Diner. He recently completed his first novel, Severed Dreams, and can be found blurring genre lines at www.jerrygordon.net
| | | Jason Brannon
Running Toward Eden
Jason Brannon is the author of The Cage, Winds of Change, The Machinery of Infinity, and others. He currently resides in Amory, MS and maintains a website at www.jbrannon.net
| | | Anna D. Allen
Virtue's Blood
An award-winning writer, Anna D. Allen lives in western Michigan with too many books and not enough dogs. She recently completed her BSc and MA. Her future plans include cleaning out the freezer and growing tomatoes. She can be found most days in the kitchen or with her nose stuck in a book. Other publications include "Ten Gallons a Whore" in Writers of the Future and "Mrs. Kelly's Ghosts" in Ruins Metropolis.
|  | Michael Medina
Ballad of Wolves and Angels
Diner Alumni Michael couldn't remember having a normal life. Not after he, Vega, and Jiana accepted that very first hunt from The Diner. It certainly didn't involve international crime bosses, drug traffickers, or any flying bullets. But this was his life now. Michael looked out over Antioch City. He shook his head. "I have a bad feeling about this."
Jiana rolled her eyes. "How bad could it be?"
Vega placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "It always gets worse when you say that."
"So we're not taking the hunt?" she asked.
"Of course we are," Michael replied.
Vega sighed, "I'm going to regret this...I just know it." |  | Brett McLaughlin
Change of Heart
Brett McLaughlin is a bestselling and award-winning nonfiction author. His books on computer programming, home theater, and analysis and design have sold in excess of 100,000 copies. He has been writing, editing, and producing technical books for nearly a
decade, and is as comfortable in front of a word processor as he is behind a guitar, chasing his three kids around the house, or laughing at reruns of Arrested Development with his wife.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 26 January 2009 19:34 )
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Written by Coach Culbertson
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Tuesday, 20 January 2009 21:14 |
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We're hard at work proofing our layout and getting the final pieces put together! Here's an updated cover:  |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 21 January 2009 18:49 )
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