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Diner 4 Title Determined

January 9, 2012 in Diner News, Staff Blog with 2 Comments

Greetings Readers,

The Midnight Diner has been silent for a while–too long, in fact. That’s about to change.

Story decisions are now being made, edits worked on, things happening. One we have our final list of Diner 4 authors, we’ll post them here. Until then, I leave you with the full title of our fourth issue:

The Midnight Diner Volume 4: Wastelands Under the Sun.

Zombies will feast (and fast), desperate men will draw steel in the desert, souls will be lost (and found)–and, of course, everyone’s favorite Lovecraftian unspeakable abominations will return to prey upon the minds of the weak and marginalized.

Be excited.

–Robert S. Garbacz

Editor-in-Chief, The Midnight Diner

Pursuing Christ on the Fringe

Introducting Stephanie Aisbet

March 10, 2011 in Diner News with Comments Off

Hello, Diner Patrons!

We are very pleased to welcome one of our newest interns, Stephanie Aisbet!  She is a senior English major at Valparaiso University and is ecstatic to become more involved with ccPublishing as time progresses.  Being especially interested in editing authors’ works and helping them to express their story in the best possible way, Steph will be of great help as submissions for The Midnight Diner come in.

Steph’s interest in publishing has led her to the obvious conclusion of becoming an editor, preferably for a book publishing company.  Since this position takes quite a while to achieve, she will begin working her way up the publishing industry ladder upon her graduation this December.

When she doesn’t have her nose stuck in a book she’s reading for class, Steph can probably be found working at the Welcome Desk in the student union, applying for jobs, eating at El Salto (Best margarita in town!), or planning for her upcoming summer wedding!  She has also spent the last year s

Introducing Susan Barnes

March 7, 2011 in Diner News with 0 Comments

Fellow Diner Patrons,

Please join me in welcoming one of our newest interns, Susan Barnes.  A senior English major from Valparaiso University in Indiana, she has joined our team to help further The Midnight Diner’s success and to gain insight into the publishing world in hopes of someday working for a young adult and children’s literature publishing company.

When her time isn’t spent reading books, Susan likes to stay active and involved on campus.  Being a part of College Mentors for Kids has really influenced what type of publishing she would enjoy working with in the future.  College Mentors for Kids is a program where first through fifth grade “at risk” students are paired with “big buddies,” college students, and they interact and do different activities on campus to give first hand experience with how wonderful and beneficial college is.  Such activities include making goop with the science department, learning how to properly wash hands with the pre-med club, and even getting the chance to meet Valparaiso University’s division one basketball team!  Susan, wanting to take this wonderful experience to the next level, decided to combine her passion of working with kids with her love of books.

After college Susan is applying to various different graduate schools around the country including Columbia University, University of Baltimore, University of Denver, and more.  She would like to study publishing with possibly the addition of creative writing.  Stay tuned to see where she ends up!

If you have any questions or advice, she is permanently attached to her email (susan@reliefjournal.com) so do not hesitate to send her a hello!

Submissions Open For The Midnight Diner 4!!

March 1, 2011 in Diner News with 0 Comments

Fourth Edition of The Midnight Diner Submissions are open!

The Midnight Diner is a hardboiled genre anthology with a Christian slant. No restrictions on God, no restrictions on reality. Didactic preachy works are dismissed unceremoniously; we’re looking for high quality works that are uncompromising in craft, content, and quality.

Submissions for the fourth edition of The Midnight Diner are now open at the Relief Writer’s Network. Here’s what we’re looking for; please read carefully. Submissions that are completely out of gamut will be subject to ridicule and immediate rejection.

1. Unpublished Short Fiction up to 10,000 words. Simultaneous submissions okay, but you need to pull your submission ASAP if it gets accepted elsewhere.

2. Submissions are only accepted via the Online Submission System at the Relief Writers Network. Here.  Absolutely NO email or snail mail read or even remotely considered unless your name is Stephen King and you wrote The Stand. Anne Rice, Neil Gaiman, and F. Paul Wilson are also exceptions. Everybody else, get with the program

3. Categories for Submissions are:
Category Examples (for clarification only)

Horror – Stephen King, Anne Rice, Dean Koontz, Peter Straub

UFO/Aliens – X-Files, Fringe, Coast To Coast AM

Conspiracy Millennium – X-Files, Fringe, Coast To Coast AM

Hardboiled – Detective/Crime Raymond Chandler, Janet Evanovich, F. Paul Wilson

That One That Happens in Diner – All categories – just has to happen in a diner

Jesus Vs. Cthulhu – No posers. If you’re submitting in this category, you had better be familiar with Lovecraft or Derleth’s work, and the piece should reflect it.

Paranormal/Archetypal Exploration Neil Gaiman, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton

Weird Western- Cowboys and Indians meet something weird

Weird War – In honor of all our soldiers in all branches of the armed forces

Monster Stories – Dracula, Frankenstein, Godzilla, Buffy – yes, you can submit your
Christian vampire story here

Adventure – Indiana Jones, Dan Brown

Shatner On A Plane – Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Night Gallery

Note: Combinations of Genres are encouraged. For example, a hardboiled detective investigating a paranormal crime, or a monster story that has a Twilight Zone twist. You may and probably should select multiple categories when submitting your work.

4. Compensation: Three Editor’s Choice awards will be selected. Prize money for Editor’s Choice is a hundred bucks. All categories are eligible. Everybody else gets their names up on Amazon, a contributor’s copy, bragging rights, and the possibility of being on the Diner staff for the next edition. Approximately 15 stories will be selected for publication.

5. No hardcore sci-fi. I don’t want to read stories that I have to learn a new vocabulary or solar system for. I don’t want to read about what happened after the fourth war for Alpha Centuari, Beta Centauri, or any other Centauri. Besides, you can’t fit a starship into a Diner. Other places are more suited for these genres, i.e. the incredible site at raygunrevivial.com for Sci-fi helmed by Diner-approved editor Johne Cook.

6. No sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Do you know what happens when you let ogres and trolls in Diners? You will be billed for any messes they make.

7. Know what we’ve published in the last edition. The Diner is available on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and of course on the Relief store.

8. Spiritual warfare is allowed, but should have an original twist. Absolutely no shining swords – you can poke somebody’s eye with one of those in a diner, and we don’t have the insurance for that sort of thing.

9. The Diner is not for children, or the faint of heart. Jesus dressed up as Thor, a whore who moonlights as an exorcist, a bouncer at a strip club, and more offbeat characters were regulars in the first edition of The Diner. This is not Guideposts or your Sunday School quarterly. Pansy sanitized work will be unceremoniously dismissed. Do not send me work where gangbangers say things like, “Golly gee, Beav, what ever are we going to do with this swell crack?”

10. Submissions will tentatively close May 1, 2011. Do not send queries. Submit your work.

11. Release Date for the fourth edition of The Midnight Diner is mid-late 2011. The Fourth Edition will be available in print, soft cover and perfect bound in a 7″ishx10″ish trim size at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and several other venues.

Sit down, order some coffee, and let’s see what you’ve got. Give me your best shot.

Your Midnight Waitress,
Michelle Pendergrass
Editor-In-Chief | Coach’s Midnight Diner

Nope. Not sleeping on the Job.

January 19, 2011 in Diner News with 5 Comments

I promise you.

We have not been sleeping or hiding.

Ian Philpot, our Web Editor, has been slaving away moving The Diner from Joomla to WordPress and now…

it is finished.

Thank you, Ian, for your long hours. We’re so happy our new clothes fit.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be opening submissions for The Midnight Diner 4! Much content is also coming your way here, at the new digs. We’ve even got a (bless my OCD heart) blogging schedule! It’ll go something like this:

Monday–Editor’s spot

Tuesday–Diner News/Diner Recommends

Wednesday–Editing Escapade–this is where you (yes, you!) submit a 250-ish word writing sample and we showcase it here on the blog for a week. Readers will have a shot at wearing the editor’s hat by telling us in the comments how they’d edit the sample for print.  Then I (or one of my esteemed editors or maybe one of our interns) will either pick one of the wanna-be-editor’s suggestions or we’ll show you what we’d do (or both!) And remember, big brother will be watching. I’m always on the lookout for someone with astute editing talent.

Thursday–Blogger’s Choice

Friday–Blogger’s Choice

If you’d like to be one of the first guinea pigs ahem…guests…on Editing Escapade, send your writing sample to: michelle at reliefjournal dot com.

If you’d like to be on our blogging team (or be our blog manager!) email me at that same address.

Here’s to hoping life can be breathed into this old blog.

The Midnight Diner

August 26, 2010 in Diner News with Comments Off

The Midnight Diner is a hardboiled genre anthology with a Christian slant. No restrictions on God, no restrictions on reality. Didactic preachy works are dismissed unceremoniously; we’re looking for high quality works that are uncompromising in craft, content, and quality.