Second, this month is our first science fiction issue. We have prose from Daniel Hudon, Dawn Corrigan, Dan Perlman, Diane Andrews**, Michael A. Kechula, and Erin Fitzgerald, plus artwork by Steve Cartwright. We plan on doing another science fiction issue next month, so keep those submissions coming!

Third, we have an announcement to make. Defenestration is changing.

Since our first issue back in 2003, we’ve been a monthly magazine. The release schedule worked, but didn’t really take full advantage of our status as a website. Most of our traffice showed up on the 20th of the month when the latest issue went live, and then everything went quiet until the next release. But we’re a website. We’re here 24-7. We want you to visit us more than you visit your grandmother.

And so it comes to this. Defenestration, the website, will be updated weekly starting January 2010. These updates will include columns from editors Eileen Lavelle and Genevieve Valentine, as well as some from brand new columnists we’ll introduce you to later. Defenestration will also host Ben & Winslow, a weekly webcomic by editor-in-chief Andrew Kaye. If that wasn’t enough, our weekly updates will include non-fiction and fake non-fiction*** from contributors like you.

Defenestration, the magazine you’re familiar with, will now appear three times a year: April, August, and December. These will include all the great fiction, poetry, and artwork you’re used to. The year will be divided into three reading periods, with each period corresponding to a particular issue. Our submission process will be streamlined for quick responses: you’ll know whether your submissions has been rejected or held aside for consideration within a week!

What does this all mean? More content, a more selective submission process, and shorter waits for just about everything. It’ll be ten kinds of awesome. There will be plenty of cosmetic changes, too, starting in mid-December when the Submissions page is updated. But we’ll fill you in on those details next month. Remember, we’re closed to regular submissions until December 15th!

Until then!

—Bigfoot, Fiction Editor

*Your piece of cake is in the mail.

** What’s with all the D names?

***Fiction that reads like non-fiction. Like an interview with someone who doesn’t exist, or a review about a book that no one’s written.

Bigfoot enjoyed writing last month’s editorial, but today he’s outside shoveling the snow in the parking lot. Normally a little snow doesn’t bother us much-in fact our annual Lewd Snowman Competition has depended upon it-but this year we decided to axe the snowman thing (Eileen always wins) and replace it with the first annual Defenestration Forklift Demolition Derby. It immediately follows this year’s holiday party, meaning it’ll be well past midnight, the parking lot will be icy, and most of the employees will be full of Christmas Spirit(s). It should be interesting.

Anyway, this month we have five pieces of prose and one poem for your enjoyment.

Have a safe holiday season. We’ll see you again in the New Year!

—Andrew, Editor-in-Chief

January is that time of the year where we get to hear about all the movies that will come out in the next eleven months, which I will a.) go watch and b.) probably hate. For example, Prince Caspian, the next installment of C.S. Lewis’ Jesus-is-a-lion fantasy series comes out this year. It’s the only story aside from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that didn’t outright suck, but that’s not saying much. I expect lots of fighting scenes that I will enjoy, a lot of stupid dialogue spoken by a bunch of British kids I don’t really care about, and the ever-present thought that everything looks suspiciously lifted from Lord of the Rings.

Then there’s In the Name of the King, which has a nice title but looks like every other fantasy story ever told, complete with monsters that look an awful lot like orcs and uninspired “heroic” banter. It even has John Rhys-Davies in it. But look, there’s an entire army of female warriors, so OOOOOH I’ve got to see it because the writers are clearly SUCH modern thinkers!

We’ll also get to see a bunch of computer-generated cartoons, because Hollywood is convinced 2-D animation is dead. This leaves us with things like last year’s Ten Commandments, which was so poorly animated God himself struck down everyone involved with the movie with bolts of lightning (sparing only Alfred Molina, who I can only assume was forced to do the movie at gunpoint).

I’m only  really looking forward to two things: the next Hellboy movie, which, even though all the faerie folk look like all the things Guillermo del Toro couldn’t fit into Pan’s Labyrinth, will be awesome because Ron Perlman looks great in red. And the next Batman movie, because it’s got the Joker in it. Best. Comic. Villain. EVER.

End rant.

Just a heads up: we’ve altered our mail system to strictly segregate submissions from utter crap. Make sure the subject line of anything you send to us has the appropriate label, as requested on our submissions page. Anything that doesn’t contain the proper words in the subject line get dumped in a folder that is never read and instantly emptied every day.

Now, go enjoy the magazine. Five writers, two poets, a new Defenestrati strip, new columns, and some random piece of amusing crap we found in the office await your eyes.

—Andrew Kaye, editor-in-chief