Fans of fantasy and science fiction need look no further than the North Carolina-based InterGalactic Medicine Show (IGMS for short). Founded by Orson Scott Card in 2005, the magazine currently releases new issues every other month, with columns and book reviews updated monthly.
IGMS is an:
online fantasy and science fiction magazine…featuring content from both established as well as talented new authors. In addition to our bi-monthly issues, we offer weekly columns and reviews on books, movies, video games and writing advice.
Chris Bellamy writes a regular movie review column; other recent columns have included “The Story Behind the Stories:Â IGMS Authors Share How Their Stories Came to Be” and “Lit Geek” by former Piedmont Laureate James Maxey.
Past fiction contributors include current fiction editor Scott M. Roberts, Tim Pratt, Edmnund R. Schubert (the fiction editor from 2006-2016), Gray Rinehart, and a host of newer and lesser-established writers. For the full back list, click here.
Subscriptions to IGMS are only $15 per year, which also grants access to all the back issues! Each issue is fully illustrated and contains some audio content.
Those interested in writing for IGMS should spend some time on their submission page. Of note:
- “Science fiction” includes hard science fiction, science fiction adventure, alternate history, near-future, far-future, psi, alien, and any other kind of science fiction you can think of.
- “Fantasy” includes heroic fantasy (based on any culture’s mythology), fairy tales, contemporary fantasy, and “horror” in the sense of supernatural suspense (not gory blood-fests, thanks).
- Within these genres, we like to see well-developed milieus and believable, engaging characters. We also look for clear, unaffected writing. Asimov, Niven, Tolkien, Yolen, and Hobb are more likely to be our literary exemplars than James Joyce.
- They don’t usually publish stories that are more than 17,500 words.
- IGMS pays $0.06 a word.
- IGMS requires a rating of PG-13: no explicit sex or violence; obscenity is fine in moderation, but profanity is not.
- Some free stories are available here.
IGMS is online at www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com. They’re also on Facebook and Twitter.