Eric Flint’s
1632 & Beyond
Short fiction is back in the 1632 Universe!
Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond will publish six issues per year,
on the first day of odd-numbered months.
Is this from Ring of Fire Press or 1632 Inc.?
It’s from a new company, Flint’s Shards Inc.
Do you have permission?
Yes, we have a contract with Lucille Robbins, Eric Flint’s widow and heir.
We will also coordinate closely with Baen Books to maintain the canon continuity for which the 1632 series is known.
I missed some Grantville Gazettes. Can I get those?
Yes. Grantville Gazette issues are available here individually and in groups of six.
What about Gazette issues I paid for but didn’t download?
While we are making the back issues of the Grantville Gazette available for sale, we have an obligation to pay the owner of those issues for every issue sold. We do not have permission to give them away for free.
I had three issues left on my Grantville Gazette subscription.
1632, Inc. (the company that sold those subscriptions) is no longer in business.
Is this going to be just like the Grantville Gazette?
Not exactly, but close. We will publish primarily 1632 stories with some stories in the other Assiti Shards universes (Time Spike and Alexander Inheritance).
What about 1632 serials?
Yes, with caveats:
The editors may decide to split a story up into multiple parts.
The editors need to see the full serial. Our upper limit is going to be 17,500 words total. That is a hard limit. We can publish novelettes, but not novellas.
The same group of characters can go on to have another self-contained adventure. We are strongly in favor of this. But we’re not publishing novels with the serial numbers filed off, either. (Pun fully intended.)
What about the other Assiti Shards?
Yes, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond will publish stories in the Time Spike and Alexander Inheritance universes.
What about 1632 non-fiction?
Yes.
What about Universe stories?
Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond will not have a Universe section at this time.
But can I send you a non-1632, non-Assiti Shards story?
Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond is not the right venue for that.
How big will an issue be?
40,000 words. We hope to increase this over time.
What will an issue cost?
$6. There will also be subscriptions options with bonus content.
Where can I buy Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond?
1632magazine.com – We recommend this. That’s where the subscription bonus content will be.
Amazon – This is where the print-on-demand version will be available.
What about paper copies?
Yes, we’ll have print-on-demand on Amazon.
Who’s in charge, anyway?
Editor-in-Chief: Bjorn Hasseler
Editor: Bethanne Kim
Editor: Chuck Thompson
Art Director: Garrett W. Vance
Board of Directors: Griffin Barber, Iver Cooper, Donald Davis, Bill Fawcett, Chuck Gannon, Bjorn Hasseler, Bethanne Kim, Lucille Robbins, Chuck Thompson
Will you publish my novel?
Our contract is for short fiction. Novels go through Baen. Break in through Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond and build a track record.
What about anthologies and collections?
Those go through Baen, too.
How much do you pay?
To start, $.04 (four cents) per word. In time, as sales increase, we hope to increase that to $.08 (eight cents) per word.
How do I submit a story?
Post your story to the 1632 Slush conference on Baen’s Bar, using the story title as the thread title. Then go to the next conference down, 1632 Slush Comments, and start a thread there with the same name. This is where you will receive comments from readers, other authors, and editors.
Often your story will need to be revised. Not every posted comment will be correct. The editors are the ones deciding whether to buy your story, so take their comments seriously. Once your story has been up for a minimum of one (1) week and you have updated it, taking into account responses in 1632 Slush Comments, you can resubmit to slush noting it is version 2, v2, etc. You can keep doing this until it is good enough for publication or you decide to stop pursuing it. The highest number of revisions anyone can remember is seventeen (17). In other words, a writer workshop is built in.
Please, do not title a version Final or even Final? or anything else descriptive. If the previous version was v3, please call the next one v4.
1632magazine.com will have helps for authors. Over time, content from 1632.org will move here. If you wrote for the Grantville Gazette, expect a few changes in manuscript formatting.
May I send my story directly to the editors?
Yes, and we will then post it to 1632 Slush and open a thread in 1632 Slush Comments on your behalf. 1632 is a huge shared universe, and we want the people who are going to realize that your story necessarily affects & is affected by this previous story over here. The more eyes on it, the better. The email address to us for this is submissions(at)1632andBeyond.com.
Can I use up-time characters?
Yes. In the helps for authors section of the website, go read about the up-timer grid The short version is that there are 3,551 up-timers, and we know who each of them are. You can claim one or more characters by posting a request to the gridmaster in the 1632 Tech conference on Baen’s Bar or by emailing the gridmaster. Claims are good for one year and may be renewed.
What about Eric Flint’s characters?
Eric’s characters such as (but not limited to) Mike Stearns, Rebecca Abrabanel, Gretchen Richter, and Jeff Higgins are reserved for authors writing the mainline books for Baen. You may ask about cameos, but in general, apply the principle that if Doc Adams can treat it, you don’t need to borrow Doc Nichols.
Can I set a story in Grantville?
Yes. Ideally, each issue will have one or more stories set in Grantville, and one or more stories set elsewhere. Every once in a while, a whole issue might be set in the same place, either because the editors planned a themed issue or because it just happened to work out that way.
Where can and can’t I write?
Don’t get ahead of the books coming out from Baen. Don’t box in those writers.
You should generally avoid New England, the British Isles, the Caribbean, the west coast of Africa, and the west coast of North America. If you can “write small” about limited effects or a limited area, the editors are more likely to approve borderline cases.
May I resubmit a story I posted to 1632 Slush a couple years ago?
Yes. Please review the associated 1632 Slush Comments thread and make any appropriate revisions before posting.
May I write stories set in 1631?
Yes, and be aware you are playing the game on the hard setting and making it less likely we will buy your story. If we ask ourselves, “Since these characters did X, why don’t we see lots of Xs in later novels in the 1632 stories?”, then we’ll have to decline.
Your best chance for success writing in the early years is to write back-story or in-fill for something already in canon. For example, “Freedom Arches” in Grantville Gazette 100 is a short story that explains how Gretchen Richter received permission to use the Golden Arches for the CoC—and why no one in the USE ever learned how she did it. And that’s ALL it does.
How long can a story be?
Your story should be as long as it needs to be—or as short as it needs to be. There is no minimum length.
We prefer short stories. In science fiction and fantasy, that’s under 7500 words, but some are only a few thousand—or even a few hundred. We know that 10,000-12,000 is a comfortable length for many of you. That’s squarely in novelette range (7,500-17,500 words), and that’s okay. Expect longer novelette-length stories to be serialized into two or three parts.
We have a hard cap of 17,500 words.
Will you publish non-canon stories?
No. Even if we put them in their own specially marked non-canon issue, we would spend a lot of time explaining that over and over. We’d rather spend that time publishing your stories which are part of the 1632 universe.
What about stories set a generation after the Ring of Fire?
No.
What kinds of stories are you looking for?
A variety.
We are not looking for flash-of-light stories that begin with the Ring of Fire. If it’s a great story, we might buy it anyway—but do yourself a favor and don’t start your first story here.
We are not looking for boy meets girl, they tech, they live happily ever after (or not). Such stories are primarily Technology.
That is not to say you can’t write a story with technology in it, but make the story primarily about the people. Make them interesting, and have them deal with the effects of the Ring of Fire and the effects of the technology they are developing. That’s Sociology + Technology.
A third factor to include is Action. Physical conflict is only one way to show action.
How do I write in the alternate history genre?
Don’t worry about it. You are writing in the 1632 universe (or maybe the Time Spike universe or the Alexander Inheritance universe). Tell a good story.
Multiple genres exist within the 1632 universe. Eric Flint explained that _1632_ is actually a western with many of the roles inverted (Mike Stearns fulfills the traditional sheriff role, even those Dan Frost holds the law enforcement office, Julie Sims is the gunslinger, etc.) See his forward to the Grantville Gazette V collection for why the 1632 universe is a soap opera.
The novels range from military fiction (1637: The Transylvanian Decision) to intrigue (1636: The Vatican Sanction) to economic romance (1636: The Viennese Waltz). So do the stories.
What about first-person vs. third-person narration, limited viewpoint vs. omniscience viewpoint, etc.?
If you have no idea what this question is about, write from one character’s point of view, and don’t get inside other characters’ heads.
If you want to change the point of view, please center three asterisks with spaces between them as a scene break. Like this:
* * *
Now begin writing from a different character’s point of view.
But somebody respected or famous said you can’t do that in a short story. . . .
It’s worth knowing “the rules” and working within them until you have the skill to break them. Narrow down from the rules of the English language to the conventions of fiction to the conventions of short stories to the guidelines for a specific venue. Then listen to the people who are willing to pay you for writing in that venue.
-Updated August 20, 2023
