The short fiction market was once dominated by monthly pulp magazines. From the 1920s on, magazines like Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Strange Tales cranked out thousands of stories. Across those cheap, news-print pages some of the greatest writers of fantasy, horror and sci-fi made their names; writers like Lovecraft, Howard, C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner and many others.
Today the heirs of that tradition can be found on the web. Dozens of web-based-magazines, or E-Zines supply a constant stream of short fiction, most of it for free.
I've been fortunate enough to have a few of my own stories published by these digital purveyors of the written word. Links to those sites, and to my stories on them are below. Unfortunately many of them are no longer actively publishing, but some are archived and can still be read online.
A now (sadly) defunct e-zine that was dedicated to bringing back the classic space opera and golden-age science fiction of yesteryear.
My short story The Oracle of Ganymede was featured in April of 2012. Although the site went belly-up a few years ago, the story page lives on through the magic of the Internet Wayback Machine. Click on the pic above to read.
Hammer and Bolter was the monthly e-magazine from the Black Library. Each month they published several short stories and novel excerpts set in the grim and violent worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40K.
My short story The Talon of Khorne was featured in Issue #20, on sale now.
My second contribution The Leechlord, appears in Issue #22, also available now.
$3.99 each for digital download, direct to your Kindle, Nook or other e-reader.
Flash Fiction provided daily, free of charge. Every Day Fiction publishes one short story a day, every day, all year long. All of the content is 1000 words or less. They offer a wide variety of genres, from literary fiction to romance and horror.
I have been lucky enough to have three short stories featured as the "story of the day" on this site:
The Final Summoning
Dragon Knight &
The Past, Imperfect
Lost Souls was writer David Barton's online magazine. It focused on providing a forum for up & coming writers of horror and supernatural fiction. Every issue was jam-packed with creepy, spooky and gory stories from some of the best new talent in the genre.
My short story An Unexpected Guest appeared in the last ever issue of this sadly, now-defunct publication, linked to the logo picture above.
One of the longest-lasting e-zines out there, Anotherealm has been publishing some of the best sci-fi and fantasy content on the web for years.
My short story Alexandria (a flash fiction contest runner-up on their site from a few years back) imagines what a vacation brochure might have looked like if the Roman Empire had never fallen.