Reinvigorating a “Labor of Love”

Spinetingler Magazine has gone through a number of changes over the last decade. It was once an online, issue-based periodical with the financial wherewithal to pay its contributors and confidence enough to hand out annual awards (one of which The Rap Sheet won back in 2009). Then it relaunched in a continuous-publication format that seemed to offer the hope of greater reportorial and critical coverage. But over the last couple of years, it has become a blog of sorts, offering a mix of book reviews and short fiction.

So I am pleased to learn, via Spinetingler editor Sandra Ruttan’s post today in Do Some Damage, that the mag is getting a second wind. “Spinetingler will have its first issue in years this fall,” Ruttan writes. “We’re currently accepting fiction submissions, scheduling author interviews, selling limited ad space, and pulling things together.” This new edition of Spinetingler is scheduled for posting in October, and the call has already gone out for freelance submissions, with writers to be paid “$25 for short stories and $75 for short novellas.”

Ruttan remarks in Do Some Damage that “Spinetingler has always been a labor of love, and primarily self-financed. As a result, our output has varied over the years. [Fiction editor] Jack Getze and I would like to thank you for your ongoing support throughout the years.” I, for one, will be pleased to welcome Spinetingler’s latest incarnation.