Join the Sorcerer's Guild Today, See the Worlds

The time has come to start thinking about nominations for the next Harper's Pen Award. That means it's time to unlock the adamantine doors of the Sorcerer's Guild and open our membership drive.

The Sorcerer's Guild is an autonomous anarcho-syndicalist collective of fans, editors and authors of the short fiction genre commonly known as Sword and Sorcery (cue lights, smoke, thunder). We gather once each year to trade spells and knitting patterns and select the winner of the presigious and lucrative Harper's Pen Award. The 2009 winner was John C. Hocking for his story "The Face in the Sea" published in Black Gate #13.

Beginning this year, you must be a member of the Sorcerer's Guild to nominate a story for the Harper's Pen. Cruel, I know, but we must maintain some standards. Luckily, joining the Sorcerer's Guild is not only easy, it's rewarding, because we are prepared to offer the first 100 new members a pdf download of Black Gate #14. Yes, that's right - by joining today, you will receive a free magazine of the some of the best Sword and Sorcery short fiction being published today. How can you say no?

Send me an email to harperspen@gmail.com and let me know if you are a fan, author, or editor, and which issue of Black Gate you would like to receive. Supplies are limited to the first 100 who join, so don't delay. If you already know which stories you would like to nominate, include them in your email. You can nominate up to five stories, including your own.

But beware! Once you join the Sorcerer's Guild, you can never leave, for death awaits you with nasty big pointy teeth.