Looking for Group: Acrux Christmas Edition!

Friends

I'm determined that this year's fanzine day for "The Twelve Trek Days of Christmas" will have a wider choice for you than the two we had last year! We've got a great start so far with confirmed pitches from Imaginations Unlimited, the Starfleet International Region 1 fanzine edited by Jeff Davis, Hailing Frequencys Open, the fanzine of TrekUnited and, of course, Acrux, my very own perzine!

Although in general the submissions are welcomed from any quarter, each 'zine has a different focus with Jeff drawing material mostly from the massive fanbase of SFI's first region whilst the editor of Hailing Frequencies well, I'll let him speak for himself!

I've always wanted Acrux to show more of the fan talent we have in Australia so my focus is going to be on material from "Down-Unda" but not just from Australia - I would like to invite submissions from anywhere in the antipodes, New Zealand, South Africa, South America ... anywhere south of the equator!

"Trekzines" are traditionally mini-anthologies of fan fiction whilst, in general, most SF fanzines tend towards commentary. What I am going for is an entertaining 'zine that walks a line between the two, something along the lines of the Analog model: 60% Fiction, 20% Fact/Commentary, 5% Housekeeping (letters of comment & reviews) and 15% Advertising (see below).

The Christmas issue of Acrux will be a freely downloadable file as always but I will be experimenting with a couple of different media as well. The download will be a "POD-ready" pdf formatted for A4 and US Letter as well as viewable in Issuu and Scribd to get maximum exposure world-wide.

What am I looking for?

• 3-4 short stories / flash fiction of 2-3 pages each
• 2 longer stories of 6-8 pages each
• 2-3 science fact articles
• 1-2 page editorial (This one's mine!)
  
• 2-3 pages of book reviews: fact as well as fiction
• 2-3 pages of Letters of Comment focussing on the state of Star Trek
• Articles will be chosen competitively, ie the best get's published, but I might limit them to one per organisation, to try to get a good spread of contributions. However if I don't get contributions of sufficient quality, I'll be bending that rule - I'm not going to knock back a good story just to publish a Mary Sue from the USS Good-Ship-Lollipop!
• The criteria I will be judging submissions on will be style and originality for fiction and non-fiction (some seasonal, Christmas content will be appreciated), book reviews will be judged on content (current releases will be favoured), Letters of Comment will be judged on wit and commentary as well as your standing in the Trek fan community - let's face it, a letter from J.J.Abrams will be published before one from the C.O. of the Good Ship Lollipop RPG. LOC's could be edited for length on agreement with the author.
• Drafts are expected to be already edited for spelling and grammar, a badly edited article will reflect badly on you. Gross examples of badly edited articles will be returned.
• Submissions must be in English but both American and "The Queen's English" spelling and grammar will be respected at the authors request. If you're looking for advise on grammar or style try Lynch's "Guide to Grammar and Style" or anything based on the Chicago Manual of Style such as this although their focus is journalism rather than fiction.
• If you want submission or general writing advice, Dean Wesley Smith's quidelines for "Strange New Worlds" make good general sense, although the info on hardcopy submission doesn't apply in this case (see below). Even better advise is DWS quoting Heinlein, although you needn't bother sending your FanFic to a Simon & Schuster, send it to me instead!
• Submissions should be emailed to me at kirok@trekunited.com as either MSWord, OpenOffice docs, rtf or txt files.

There are some conditions I must insist on though for inclusion in Acrux. If you feel your work cannot fit into this then you are still free to excercise your right to publish privately and I wish you all the best!

• As a fan production Acrux will have adequate copyright disclaimers to acknowledge the rights of the copyright owners but I make no claim to ownership of your work - the original aspects of your work remain yours and i will support your moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
• I would like the Twelve Trek Days of Christmas to be family-friendly so I must ask that your content be no more than moderate in impact, for example M according to Australian classifications. However in the spirit of IDIC I support the GLBT Trek community, and would welcome a story that shows how a Star Trek future could be free of all prejudice.
• As a fan production, there can of course be no paid or sponsored advertising however contributing authors will be offered space to publicise the organisation or fan production group of their choice. Authors work will be accompanied with a biographical paragraph unless they wish to preserve their privacy.
• Space will be allowed for accompanying graphics at the editors discretion
• The deadline for the Twelve Trek Days of Christmas is Dec 1st with half of December for leeway. There will be a "second string".

I hope you'll consider using this project to make a statement this Christmas of how Star Trek fans can can give during the season of good will. Feel free to contact me on my email address or to join the discussion on the subject on the google group.

My best wishes for success in all your endeavours

-------------------Kirok of L'Stok, Editor, Acrux ------------------
----------------------- bISovbejbe'DI' tImer -----------------------
------------------- When in doubt, surprise them -------------------