New Edge Sword & Sorcery, aka NESS, is a magazine that’s been slowly growing since its inception a few years ago. You may recall when the publisher, with guest editor Jay Wolf, put out the Beating Hearts & Battle Axes anthology that I wrote a story for. (You can buy that now, if you haven’t yet!)

For the next week-ish, they’re crowdfunding this year’s issues, which include the usual S&S fare, along with a special dying earth-themed selection. As a stretch goal incentive, I’ll be writing a sword & sorcery flash fic for one of the issues!

As of the time I write this, they’ve just unlocked another author pay raise and a story by June Orchid Parker. There are still a few other goals between that and my story, but that just means there’s a lot to look forward to: digital art, bonus fics, and the lucky people who unlock the goals get special prizes as well.

I’m not only a stretch goal for this, I’m also the copy editor, which means I get the chance to see all the stories in advance. I’ve already edited a half dozen of them, plus a nonfiction article by Catherine Lundoff, and this year’s crop is looking great, as usual.

If you’re like me, you maybe watched the Conan cartoon as a kid, loved the aesthetics and the swords and the magical shuriken, then drifted away from the genre because it didn’t feel like it was for you. In my case, it was mostly the objectification of women; why read S&S when I could instead indulge in other kinds of fantasy where sexist stuff happened with less frequency and force?

What I love about NESS is that they’re working to change that, while still keeping the cool bits. The range of voices and perspectives is broader, but the snakes are still big and the swords are still sharp.

So! Let’s see if we can ride this hype train to the end of the line and unlock a bunch of fun stuff. As the NESS folks say, swords together!