No Fantasy Stories Involving Elves, Magic Potions, Wizards, Etc. Will Be Accepted by Ali Rowland
Once upon a time, three young friends set up a literary magazine.
They all loved writing, but when it came to putting the selection criteria together, they all agreed about excluding fairy stories.
Ryan swore quite strongly when the subject came up. It turned out he had shared a bedroom with an older brother, a dedicated fantasy gamer who had played Dungeons and Dragons way into the early hours.
Gita was a sensitive child whose parents had read to her every night. Her dreams were full of pixies, elves and sprites. They elbowed their way in everywhere, which annoyed her, especially when she was dreaming about ice-cream.
Sara had often been left to her own devices. There was a very old book of fairy tales in the house, with woodcut illustrations. Sometimes when there was no one else home and it got dark, Sara imagined the characters lurking in the corners of the room, waiting to pounce on her.
Despite the ban, there were always people sending stories that broke the rules. Often the editors got halfway through reading the submission before the fantasy stuff started.
When this happened, Ryan got very cross and immediately deleted the file. His instinct was to email back, “Can’t you damn-well read?” or something worse, but he always stopped himself just in time. His anger management course was going well.
Gita tutted and sighed, noted the author’s name and email, and added them to her list. She’d set up a little algorithm that alerted her if the contributor had submitted fairy tales before, so that she would never accidentally read anything by that same person again. It was very clever.
Sara often shuddered as she read, feeling a sickness in her stomach, and always seemed to have a bad day afterwards. She did read the stories to the end, though, and sometimes she thought they were quite good.
Eventually they all got together and cast a spell to protect their magazine from further non-compliant submissions.
This worked really well, and they all agreed it must have been because of the magic power of three.
Ironically, the magazine closed down three years later.
Sara now heads up a successful publishing business with a thriving Fantasy Fiction section. She’s lost touch with the others. It’s not at all clear if they all lived happily ever after.
Ali Rowland lives in Northumberland, UK. Sometimes she writes about life with mental health issues, but just as often her prose and poetry is about the world in general. After being published in over fifty magazines, and winning two poetry competitions, she is coming dangerously close to regarding herself as an author.
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Artwork by Iner Souster
J. Iner Souster is a painter of landscapes and portraiture, a sculptor who creates musical instruments out of reclaimed materials, metal dresses from handspun metal, and a collection of upcycled FauxBots. He’s also a photographer, musician, illustrator and mixed media artist. His writing has appeared in Spillwords, Friday Flash Fiction, A Story in 100 Words, 100 Word Project, The Drabble, and 101 Word Stories.
Instagram – inersouster – www.instagram.com/inersouster
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