Red Room Where the Writers Are

I received the following email today from Murdaland Magazine:

We regret to announce that Murdaland is suspending publication.

We tried very hard in 2008 to keep Murdaland going as a viable entity, but, sadly, it's just no longer possible.  We can't rule out our return one day, but for now we're going to have to accept facts and wrap things up.

As upset as we are by this turn of events, we are greatly consoled by the support and enthusiasm we witnessed -- not just for one doomed magazine but for the very idea of literary crime and noir stories.  Writers like yourself are embarked on a labor of both love and stringent craft.

Magazines pay very little and markets are few.  You're thus asked to make the sacrifices and meet the demands of love (for literature, for the short story form, for the genre) while confronting the imposing standards of an extremely difficult craft.

That so many of you continue to write and work on such stories is an inspiration. 

We take solace in the knowledge that countless gifted writers are out there laboring to create just the kind of quality dark fiction we were fortunate enough to feature for a time.

We wish you the very best with your work.  We're just sorry that Murdaland won't be around to provide a home for it.

                                      The Murdaland Staff

I was shocked when I received the email.  I am very well aware of the difficulty in selling short stories.  So much, in fact, that I choose to publish my short stories online as opposed to trying to sell them.  I can think of a few writers who have managed to make a few pennies off of a collection of short stories (i.e. ZZ Packer, Alice Munro, Chitra Divakaruni, etc.)  but for the most part, writers such as myself write stories for the Internet to build our base. 

I would like to someday publish maybe a collection of novellas but for the short stories that I write, I don't have any plans for them other than publishing them online. It saddens me, though when a magazine goes out of print due to lack of funds but Murdaland makes it seem like they are the only medium that is suffering.  Here in my home state of Michigan, I've heard horrible, terrible horror stories about people who become jobless, homeless, etc.  I've heard stories of people who've had to literary leave everything behind and move someplace else and start over.

Well, now even moving out-of-state is no guarantee of success.  Nothing is guaranteed anymore. It's not about what you know but who you know. Unfortunately, the magazine didn't know enough people to stay afloat and that could happen to anyone.There used to be a time when there was a difference between good and bad jobs and good and bad magazines and good and bad television shows.  Now, it seems that merely surviving is a good thing. But this is why literature is so important, even if that literature is urban fiction or a cheesy Harlequin romance novel. 

The short story may not have the capacity to float but the novel does because it provides entertainment, which there will always be a need for and for which provide a sense of relief, excitement, anger and any other kind of emotion that we can think of.  Without the writer, where would the screenwriter, the editor, the publicist, the actor, the fans, the paper maker, the popcorn eater and the reader be at?  All of these roles begin when they become attached to what the writer has written.  Therefore, the writer must be romantic and shroud themselves with blind optimism.  They must believe in the power of their words and the believe of the suspension of reality.  Without that choice, there is nothing to hope for, to believe in, to daydream and wonder.  Murdaland is gone but the novel isn't.  See for yourself.  Read. Write.

Discover.

Bye for now,

 P.