Labyrinth Inhabitant Magazine is looking to publish well-written fiction dealing with characters who find themselves trapped in ancient, labyrinthine and/or baffling artificial environments. Relevant articles and poetry are also welcome. It’s my hope that by focusing on a very specific theme, Labyrinth Inhabitant authors will create a dialogue through their stories about humanity’s relationship with our increasingly artificial world. Labyrinth Inhabitant offers $20 US via PayPal for accepted short stories over 1,500 words, $40 over 5,000 words, and $10 for poetry, articles and short-shorts. In exchange, I’d like the nonexclusive right to publish and archive your work on the Labyrinth Inhabitant website, and also the nonexclusive right to include your work in a print or web-based Labyrinth Inhabitant anthology. Reprints and simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Accepted works will be displayed freely on the site along with any author bio and links you submit, not locked behind a paywall. Send submissions to labyrinthinhabitant@gmail.com. Query if you get no response in a month.
Fiction
I’d like a variety of labyrinth stories that would be categorized as science fiction, fantasy and horror. There’s no firm word limit, but I mostly expect stories under about 15,000 words (note that the highest pay level is for “5,000 and up”). The central characters should live, at least for the time being, in some kind of artificial structure that they don’t fully understand and which they find difficult or impossible to escape. Be imaginative in your conception of what type of artificial environment your characters might find themselves in, but please don’t submit stories with no connection or only a tenuous connection to the labyrinth subgenre. A good Labyrinth Inhabitant story will usually be about the characters’ relationship to the setting, and will always have a setting that is memorable and interesting. In particular, good labyrinth stories often involve the characters’ attempts to resolve some mystery about the environment around them.
Examples of potentially good Labyrinth Inhabitant settings:
- the ruins of an extinct advanced civilization, inhabited by the civilization’s descendants who no longer know how to leave
- an environment that seems to be designed as a trial or test for the people living inside
- a world that is plainly a computer simulation, but which the users do not know how to turn off
- a mysterious prison or zoo, from the point of view of the beings stuck inside
- a labyrinth designed to protect some secret or valuable object hidden within
- an inexplicable world that nonetheless seems to be governed by some consistent rules, such as The Library of Babel.
Elements I would prefer not to see:
- blank or featureless settings
- characters who enter a labyrinth, dungeon, fortress or other strange environment only temporarily, to execute some kind of mission
- a labyrinthine environment that turns out to be a mere dream, hallucination, or metaphor; in other words, a labyrinth that is not real in the context of the story
- anything that would be more appropriately presented in a video game or role-playing game
- fan fiction or copyrighted elements
- a sensitive, brooding guy who roams around a labyrinth for the whole story thinking about things, and then at the end he looks in a mirror and it turns out he’s the minotaur. This is Labyrinth Inhabitant Magazine. I am not going to be surprised by that twist ending.
- stories in which the characters discover they’re living in an artificial environment only at the end. Again, this will surprise no one.
- poorly edited writing. Even though this is a minor webzine, please submit only once you believe you have produced quality work.
- works whose only connection to the labyrinth subgenre is that they argue that the real world is the greatest labyrinth of all. (The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinthsdoesn’t count; one of those was a real labyrinth.)
Articles
The types of works I have in mind are substantial observations about the labyrinth subgenre, reviews of professional works such as novels, films or video games in the labyrinth subgenre, and articles about labyrinth-related news or architectural oddities. Consider querying first, especially for reviews. No reprints.
Poetry
Works that experiment with labyrinthine structure or formatting are especially welcome.
Links
If you know of a story or other web post that has something to do with the Labyrinth Inhabitant subgenre, send me a link and I’ll put it somewhere on the site.