welcome to BALLISTA magazine We openly welcome your submissions. Our preference is for fresh and inventive tales considering the supernatural, psychological, paranormal, modern horror, mythos, macabre, SF, dark fantasy or just the downright bizarre. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES | SUBSCRIBE | BACK ISSUES | SAMPLE STORY | OPEN SHORT STORY COMPETITION (non-UK residents please click HERE to purchase) Ballista ed.s Paul Neads & Andrew Myers Mucusart Publications | ISSN 1750-6646 148mm x 210mm | 52pp | £4.00 Last update: 11 Apr 2008 ALSO OUT NOW: OCCAM'S BLUNT INSTRUMENT by Dermot Glennon & Paul Neads Occam's Razor states that the simplest explanation is usually the best - but is it? If you are tired of the mundane & decidedly unsuper natural world, then this book is for you. "Razor sharp," Salford Advertiser "Utterly superb!" Marvin Cheeseman For more info, click HERE Issue 4, Spring 2008, is published 3 March and features unsettling, twisted, convoluted and unashamedly inspired works by William Meikle, Laura Bickle, Simon Vigneault, Thea Lu, Sophie Bachard, Phill Campbell, Tom Conoboy and Andy Wolverton, plus news of our OPEN SHORT STORY COMPETITION with cash prizes. Returning readers will have noticed the enhanced presentation of this volume, now snugly perfect bound and a lot easier to wipe clean. Worryingly, however, this fourth edition of Ballista comes to you with a grim warning. Following a nasty fracas between the editors and a Wicca Priestess at a comic mart in Littlehampton, a series of events took place which, quite possibly, led to a runic curse being placed upon a single copy. Despite our best efforts, the infected copy has not yet been identified. We therefore ask all readers to take the precaution of carefully checking your magazine and its packaging for slips of paper with funny symbols upon them, shaking thoroughly, please. If you discover any such item, do not contact the editors under any circumstances, but attempt rather to pass it on unnoticed to somebody you don’t like very much, maybe by popping it into their lunch box. Even if no such object emerges from your Ballista, we advise you to look out for the following symptoms of a runic curse; a strange feeling of being watched, especially at night; a growing sense of dread and paranoia; an itching at the back of the neck; and a bloody great demon chasing you down the railway track and crushing you to death under its hairy smoking hoof. As well as the great stories in this issue, don’t forget to check out our brand new biennial short story competition, giving the magazine a damn good shake as you do so. Enjoy the scary stuff. Andrew Myers, co-editor 'So, let me get this right,' I said, looking not across the polished boardroom table but above me, into the giant whirling fans. ‘What you are effectively asking me to do is give the order for my own murder...’ From Our Skin is Unbroken by Andrew Myers, issue 1 For the full sample story please click HERE Buy Current Issue | Subscription Information | Submission Guidelines | Back Issues Mucusart Publications is a member of Literature Northwest www.literaturenorthwest.co.uk Back to: The Library | The Press | The Ugly Tree | Home | Lit Shop