Feedback has been very positive for the demo issue of the Gazette and I think there is enough interest to start work on our first issue…

Since I do not want the Gazette to solely be a vanity project, I am looking for submissions. Click here for the submission guidelines.

For our first issue I had intended to make the theme “Rhode Island” in honor of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 (August 22-25) but upon further reflection I think perhaps we should make the first issue about something closer to home in Lovecraft Country…

Arkham, as HPL drew it

The Arkham Gazette, issue 1: Arkham
[T]he changeless, legend-haunted city… [W]itch-cursed, legend-haunted Arkham, whose huddled, sagging gambrel roofs… brood out the centuries beside the darkly muttering Miskatonic…

The Arkham Gazette is looking for articles, items, and scenarios related to that fabled city at near the mouth of the Miskatonic, Arkham, Massachusetts.

As described in our submission guidelines, The Arkham Gazette is seeking the following sorts of pieces:

• Scenarios set in or near Arkham.  (Be sure to make use of Arkham as a particular setting; there should be some element that makes it particular – peculiar even – to Arkham.)
• New people, places, or things (book, artifacts, creatures) for Arkham.  (Please try to avoid duplicating elements already covered in Arkham Unveiled or Miskatonic University.
• Encounters in Arkham or nearby.  (Use existing locations and people in interesting way or create your own.  Does the O’Bannion gang mistake an investigator for a someone who owes the boss money?  Who are those students carrying boxes into the Old Wooded Graveyard? What happened to that patient in room 314 at St. Mary’s?)
• Tomes (Either in the Miskatonic University stacks or beyond, any number of Mythos texts have appeared in Arkham.  Either detail an existing work or create your own in the “Masks Companion style”.)
• Historical essays (Either discuss Arkham’s real-world analogs – Salem and vicinity – or give background information on fictional Arkham.  You might write generally about the Polish community in Massachusetts in the 1920s or create a fictional history of St. Stanislaus’ church and its associated parish…)
• Props or investigators (Historical pieces, real or fictive, can be prepared as in-game documents.  If you write a history of St. Stanislaus’ church, you could turn it into a pamphlet handed out at the church or an essay for the Arkham Historical Society.)
• Something else.  (One mind can only imagine so much.  What do you want to see in the Gazette?)

There will be included an annotated list of Arkham scenarios, as there was a list of Aylesbury Pike scenarios with Issue 0.

At the present time, The Arkham Gazette remains a PDF only release and writers and artists only gain the appreciation of readers for their work…

However, I want to do something to encourage new writers to use the Gazette as a way of testing the waters.  I know that when I was starting out, submissions to places like the Unbound Book and the Whisperer were the first RPG pieces I ever sent out into the world.  It was a nerve-wracking moment of self-doubt and anxiety, but one that in retrospect was very exciting.  For the first issue, I am offering the prize of a 4-issue subscription to The Unspeakable Oath to my favorite submission from an unpublished author, a $38 value (or more, if you are outside the US).

Terms- You submit an original piece to The Arkham Gazette.  If you have never been published (epublished or in print), you are eligible to be picked by me as my favorite submission.  Should you win, you will be given a 4 issue subscription to The Unspeakable Oath.  This is open to wherever the Oath will send issues; no prize substitution, though if you already have a subscription, other arrangements can be discussed.  The contest will remain open at least until the end of August and I will announce a closing date on this blog.

Submissions outside of or unrelated to Arkham are also welcome; the topic is more a writing prompt that a fiat from on high.  If you have an idea for a piece and are unsure of if it will fit, drop me a line.  Please send all queries and submissions to arkhamgazettemagazine@gmail.com.