Shadow of the Wood

How did DKA come into being?

DKA was founded by Rebecca Shelley in 1999 on "the idea that the power of God is the greatest magic of all."  (That quote is from our vision page; I couldn't say it any better so I just quoted it.)  As I understand it, in the fall of 2005, DKA was about to close down and Bill Snodgrass  (co-founder of The Sword Review) approached Rebecca Shelley to see if he could help keep the magazine going.  After several conversations, the powers that be at SR accepted the challenge and took over DKA in October of 2005.  At that time, Johne Cook became Managing Editor of DKA and I joined the team as an assistant editor.  In January 2006, Johne decided he wanted to leave DKA to start a new magazine Ray-Gun Revival. I was asked to take over as Managing Editor and, of course, I did.

The Sword Review is the sister mag, how are you at DKA different?
 
DKA tends to publish more work with clear religious/Christian themes.  SR tends towards stories with a moral core and that are consistent with Christian beliefs.  At DKA we just take that a little further.  Also DKA tends to publish more fantasy and not as much science fiction. But I think that has to do with our name.  If an author has a story that features dragons, knights and/or angels they are probably more likely to send it to us than SR.  It's not that we don't like scifi.  We just don't get as much of it.

Another difference, a sad one, is that currently DKA doesn't pay as much as SR.  But we hope to fix that in the future if enough donations come in to support the added expense.

Maybe this is mostly for my sake as I am curious to see if I’m alone. The most fun part of being the managing editor at DKA? Most frustrating?
 
I really enjoy reading the submissions, which by and large are good.  Even some we don't end up accepting are still enjoyable reads, they just aren't right for DKA.
 
But the most fun part of my job is sending acceptances. I love sending those because, as a writer, I know how much fun they are to receive.
 
The most frustrating part is when it's clear an author didn't read our guidelines before submitting.  That annoys me because it's a waste of everyone's time – not just ours, but the author's too.  Another frustration is when we get work that is full of proofing mistakes: bad grammar, bad punctuation, etc.  My biggest pet peeve is the misuse of It's/Its.

What is it you’re looking for at the mag?
 
We want science fiction and fantasy that has some kind of religious theme or content.  That content doesn't have to be obviously Christian.  In fact, it often works better if the religious content is subtle, if the parallels are there when you look for them but aren't readily apparent if you don't.  We are also looking for speculative poetry, preferably with the same sort of religious or Christian edge.
 
Right now we are getting a lot of fantasy and poetry. We'd love to see more science fiction.  Just make sure it fits our guidelines.

What would be your dream story?

That's tough to define exactly, but we know it when we see it.  I would say that our dream story would be well written and compelling, and contain these elements: complex and interesting characters who learn something and change over the course of the story, a strong plot, originality, some religious theme or lesson (but without being preachy), a good hook at the beginning, a middle that holds the reader's attention, and an ending that satisfies, i.e. that feels like an ending and is appropriate to the rest of the story.  We tend to not like endings that feel like setups for a sequel.

Where do you see Christian Sci-fi/Fantasy going? Do you think it has a future?

I'm not sure I am qualified to predict where Christian Sci-fi/Fantasy is going.  But I hope that it will gain more readers, as well as more writers. I hope it will gain widespread acceptance and that more people will begin to see its value as a sub-genre that can not only entertain its readers but also change their lives for the better.

How do you think DKA has helped with furthering “the cause”?

I think DKA has brought more people to Christian Sci-Fi/Fantasy and shown them that work in the genre is worth a read and worth respect. I also hope that people have learned some lessons about life from reading work in our pages, and that maybe we have aided people on their walk with God or gotten them closer to God. It's kind of hard to gauge our success on those goals.  I do think we have created a thriving, supportive community for readers and writers of Christian fantasy and science fiction.

How can we help DKA?
 
You can donate money to DKA.  We're actually in the middle of our fundraising campaign right now.  It doesn't take a lot of money to run DKA, but it does take some.  All money donated to DKA (or our parent company Double-Edge Publishing) goes straight into the magazines. All the staff is volunteer, so donations mostly go to paying authors for the use of their stories and poems. A little bit goes to web hosting and that sort of administrative cost.  Even a small donation goes a long way with us.  Just $10 covers the cost of a short story appearing in our magazine.
 
In addition to donating money, people can post about DKA on their blogs and websites, link to their favorite stories, tell their friends about DKA and just generally spread the word.  Every little bit helps.

What vision does DKA have for its future?

I would like to see DKA grow its readership even more. We also want to raise our pay rates from $10 a story to $25 a story, and begin producing a print edition for each issue.  We want to continue to offer the best in Christian fantasy and science fiction online for free. We want to reach people, so being accessible and free to readers is very important to us.

*Thanks for reading. Please go check out this great e-zine. And help suport it too if you can. Even eight dollars (what you'd pay for a trade-paperback) can make a difference. And you're getting loads of great poetry and fiction for that small donation.

And don't forget to check out the other fun things going on at our other sites on the tour (See list in post below).