A New Year, A Renewed sub-Q

2017 was…

Well, it was a year, wasn’t it?

On many fronts, in fact, it was an outright disaster.

Here at sub-Q, we had overall a positive 2017. Although we may have had a few hiccups, we still released some great pieces of interactive fiction, and regained some momentum we intend to keep up through 2018–and beyond.

2017 in Review

We released five pieces of interactive fiction in 2017:

• In Sharang Biswas’s “Time to Feed” (March), a vampire’s latest victims unearth painful memories of his past. When the hunger takes over, can you resist? Do you want to?
• Emily McCosh’s “After the Giant’s war” (April) follows a woman looking for the husband the stone-metal giants took from her, determined to succeed even if it means sharing the heart beating in her own chest. What else will she find, amongst the ruins of the war?
• In Jeremy M. Gottwig’s “Footnotes in Ashes” (June), a man is lost at sea with nothing but the ashes of his dead wife. That, and his memories…
• In November, A. Merc Rustad brought us “This is a Picture Book,” a delightfully charming thoroughly disturbing look into the world of picture books. Don’t turn the page.
• And Melanie Rees’s “Tripladin Massacre” (December), wherein an author attempts to submit an account of an intergalactic massacre only to be thwarted by an overzealous editor whose interest in the story may be slightly less than unbiased, rounded out 2017. Remember: there’s no such thing as fake news, just a well-edited story.

In the last week of December, we also published a guide to submitting an interactive fiction proposal to the magazine. If you have a story that’s itching to be interactive, but have no idea where to begin, our proposal guide is a great place to start.

We’d love to see your stuff!

Coming in 2018

• More IF! – We’re aiming for a return to one piece of new or reprinted interactive fiction once a month. In 2018, we’ll bring you IF on the third Tuesday of every month. Check for our first offering of the year—”All Those Parties We Didn’t Cry At” by Natalia Theodoridou—on January 16th.
• Blog posts! – We’ll be rebooting regular blog posts about interactive fiction and other relevant things, as well as guest posts from our authors when possible. Our goal for 2018 is to provide fresh blog content on every Tuesday we don’t have a piece of IF going up. (Why Tuesday? We don’t know. Why not?)
• Patreon and subscriber benefits! – We’ll be making an announcement in March about these initiatives. Stay tuned!

Staff Changes

sub-Q can’t do what it does without its volunteer staff. Our editors and first readers regularly dedicate their free time to reviewing submissions, providing editorial feedback on prose and interactivity, and generally making sure that we can bring innovative IF straight to your browser.

With that in mind, we have a few staff changes to announce.

Editor-in-Chief/Publisher

Tory Hoke will be taking on the title of Publisher and CTO, which more or less just quantifies what she’s always done for sub-Q: provide us with what we need to provide our readers with high-quality interactive fiction.

Stewart C Baker is taking over as editor-in-chief. Devi Acharya, who had been serving in the role, will continue to provide sub-Q with her excellent talents as part of our editorial team.

Editors

Kerstin Hall has stepped down from her role as editor at sub-Q to focus more on her writing and her editorial assistant position at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Kerstin has been with sub-Q ever since its first few months, providing us with editorial acumen and interviewing expertise. We’ll be sorry to see her go. Best of luck to you, Kerstin, and thanks for all your work!

(Interested in joining the team as an editor of sub-Q yourself? Keep an eye out for a post about that soon.)

First Readers

Blaize Kaye has stepped down from his role as a slush reader to focus more on his own writing. We look forward to seeing what he produces, and thank him for his service!

In his place, welcome Jeremy M. Gottwig. Jeremy’s name may be familiar to sub-Q readers (and to anyone who’s read the first half of this post), as his work appeared in our virtual pages earlier in 2017. We’re thrilled to have his name featured on our staff page now, as well!

Here’s to the New Year!

We’re excited about what 2018 has in store for sub-Q, and hope you’ll check in with us regularly for interactive fiction and other great stuff!

But even if (for some reason) you choose not to spend any time with us at all, here’s wishing you and yours a happy, healthy, enjoyable, and safe 2018.