Award-Winning Futures Magazine is Beating the Odds

Is the short story dead? An emphatic no is stated by publisher and readers of Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine. New and established writers find a home for their mystery, literary, speculative and romance fiction. Artists, cartoonists, commentators and reviewers join together to create a 120 plus- page print publication that has readers enthralled.

ÿAward-Winning "Futures Magazine" Is Beating the Odds

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the demise of the short story have been greatly

exaggerated.

This is not to say that there havent been some accurate updates of its ailing health. Readers

bemoan the end of beloved periodicals like STORY and "Amazing Stories" and warily watch

others -- "Weird Tales" for one -- as they turn to sending letters begging subscribers to re-up.

The precarious state of the short story has also been fodder for various writers conferences.

Panels of writers have discussed where the short story is headed, if anywhere, at Trinoc

Conference on speculative fiction, the World Science Fiction Convention and Boskone, the New

England Science Fiction Association Convention.

Esteemed novelist and short story afficionado, Stephen King, wrote in the introduction to

"Everythings Eventual," "Yet for me, there are few pleasure so excellent as sitting in my favorite

chair on a cold night, with a hot cup of tea, listening to the wind outside and reading a good story

which I can complete in one sitting."

One of the magazines on the market today that continues to pay new and established authors and

artists is Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine (FMAM). Its growing success is credited to the

indefatigable efforts of its publisher, Barb Lakey. The magazine, based in Minnesota, has over

120 pages in each issue, and features over 40 writers and artists. While the majority of the

magazines stories are mystery shorts, it includes speculative, romance and literary stories as

well.

It was when Ms. Lakey was a part of a new writers group of Sisters in Crime that she began to

understand the struggle writers go through to get published. Her motivation today is to help other

writers to make their dreams come true, "We can help one another make our collective dreams

come true far easier than we can do it alone."

Futures is invited each year to nominate its best stories for the Pushcart Prize, and in 2001 Ms.

Lakey won a Derringer, given by the Short Mystery Fiction Society, for support of the art of the

short mystery. Daniel Blackstone of SFReader.com reviewed FMAM recently saying, "At a hefty

120-pages, happily devoted to fiction, poetry, mini-editorials, interviews, cartoons and classy

illustrations, "Futures" is a readers paradise."

The October/November/December issue of Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine is now on sale.

Futures is now available at Borders and Barnes and Noble, and at

http://www.futuresforstorylovers.com .

Contacts:

Pamela White, Promotion and Marketing Director

315-232-3085

pwhite05@twcny.rr.com

Barb Lakey

Publisher, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine

babs@suspenseunlimited.net