ROF: April 2010 Issue Available

The April 2010 issue of Realms of Fantasy shipped out to subscribers today and should be available on newsstands. Here is the TOC:

“Just Another Word” by Carrie Vaughn, illustration by Peter Ferguson
“Hanuman’s Bridge” by Euan Harvey, illustration by Frank Wu
“The Hag Queen’s Curse” by M.K. Hobson, illustration by Peter Ferguson
“A Close Personal Relationship” by Thomas Marcinko, illustration by John Kaiine
“The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard Van Oost and Oludara” by Christopher Kastensmidt, illustration by Federico Piatti
The cover features the artwork of Dominic Harman. The artist gallery features an interview with Italian artist, Silvano Braido.

As seems to be the norm these days, I have a few thoughts on this issue. I’ll note that Thomas Marcinko & Christopher Kastensmidt (slush survivor) are both appearing in the magazine for the first time. On the artist side of things, this marks the first appearance of Federico Piatti in RoF. In terms of the illustrations, I’ll note that this issue also contains its first spot illustration since Warren started publishing RoF, this for “Just Another Word.” In the nonfiction department, I’ll also give a warm welcome to Tony Sims, our new co-columnist for the gaming column. Matt Staggs is still around here (and with the adult books column), he’s just sharing his workload a bit.

What else? Well, Federico’s illustration to “The Fortuitous Meeting” was another piece we had in inventory when Warren purchased the magazine. With its publication, we’re now down to two illustrations still in inventory from the Sovereign Media days. And as always, let me address those poor writers who have been waiting to be published since the magazine was back with Sovereign (and yes, there are those are some artists in this boat too, but since the stories are created for the magazine before the artwork, the authors have obviously been waiting longer). We’re getting there, folks. Chris Kastensmidt feels your pain, since he once numbered among you. His was the second oldest story we had in inventory. The oldest one belongs to Aliette de Bodard, but we did manage to publish a more recent piece of hers in the last issue. So of everyone, Chris probably feels like he’s been waiting the longest to see his work published with us. But now he is published. We’ll get to all of you as well. Just keep hanging in there. Each new issue brings you closer to publication.

And one more tidbit, this for the contributors in the current issue. As you may or may not know, I am now responsible for mailing out contributor copies of each issue. I haven’t received those copies just yet. They should be arriving in the next few days. Once they’re here, I promise to get them out to you the first chance I get.

All right, that’s everything. Enjoy!