9 am

Managed to bake a cake for the office, take a long shower, make breakfast & get some work done in the last 2 hours. I love mornings.

I am sure I will crash in a bit, better head to the office before the morning peace fades into the stress of the day.

Instead of complaining about lost info, I'm going to help replace it

I'm writing this because I'm a little sad to find out skyehaven – a random blog on the internet where I first learned how to setup listening rooms – has vanished. You can still see it on the wayback machine here but the CSS is all cursed. So I'm going to summarize and describe this task myself, since I just had to redo it when setting up Mumble server.

What's the goal?

Our goal is to make it so the people in either listening room can hear the podcast, but the podcasters can't hear them. In the no mics room we will take one extra step and set it up such that the people within also cannot talk to each other.

Step-by-Step

Create the channels

Let's say you want a channel where the podcast is actually happening, let's call it “Podcast Recording Booth”. Create that, then create two sub channels under it. We'll call one “Listening Room” and the other “Listening Room (No Mics)”. When you're done it should look like this:

Link the channels

Next, enter the “Podcast Recording Booth” with your SuperUser account (or other admin account), then right-click each sub channel and click “Link”. This will make a chain icon appear in front of the channel names, that tells you it's linked.

Silence the linked channels from the recording channel only

Next, open the ACL page for the “Podcast Recording Booth” channel. Click on the “Add” button to add a new, not-inherited ACL. Uncheck the box “Applies to sub-channels”, and update the group in the drop down list to “out”. The rules applied to this ACL will affect the people in channels linked to this room, but are outside it (so – both of our listening rooms at the same time) but in the context of this room. Next, deny this ACL speak permission. This makes it so the people in the “Podcast Recording Booth” room cannot hear either of the listening rooms.

Turn mics off in the no mics channel

Next, we are going to configure the “Listening Room (No Mics)” channel to actually turn those listener's microphones off. Enter that channel's ACL page and click the “Add” button to make a new ACL. Set the group to “in” to affect only the users in this channel, not the podcast speakers or the listeners in the other linked room. Then hit the Deny Speak checkbox.

Lock down entry to the recording channel

Next, we are going to create a new group for your podcasters, so only they can enter the “Podcast Recording Booth” channel, and all other users may only join the listening rooms. Right-click on your root channel and enter the ACL page (not to be confused with the “Podcast Recording Booth” channel, do this on the root). In the group drop down list, it's actually also a text box (shocker) so type in a new group name and click Add. Once complete it will be selectable in the drop down list. Select it, then type in the names of registered users on your server you want in the podcast group. They must be registered or they won't show up.

Then, enter the ACL page for the “Podcast Recording Booth” channel and click the “Add” button twice. This will add two new ACLs with default values. Set one of these to the group “all” and the other to the new group you created earlier, I called mine “podcast”. Notice there is already an ACL in here for the group “all” and it's italicized, that is the inherited permissions, what we are about to do will overwrite some of it. For the “all” ACL you created, uncheck “Applies to sub-channels” and Deny Enter. Then for the “podcast” ACL you created, Allow Enter.

Once you do all of these, you'll be left with one access-limited channel to record the show, one room for the public to listen but also talk among themselves, and another room for the public to listen where nobody can interrupt the show.

Why am I writing this?

I'm not really writing this for you, I'm writing this for me. I've bookmarked and referred to that skyhaven blogpost multiple times over the years, it was first written in 2013, and there is straight up no good guides online to do this. Even as I write this blog post, Sunday May 19th the Mumble wiki is actually down. So my future self will thank me when I inevitably set up Mumble server again and have to remember how I did this.

Don't care if you're reading this in 2024, or 2034 you can find me on the fediverse at @dielan@shitposter.world and this Mumble server I took the screenshots for is my public Mumble server for my Podcast & Gaming Community Melonmancy.

Thanks for reading my blog post!

On pense que les maladies rares sont bien prises en charge, et on réalise que non. Les personnes qui en souffrent peuvent se retrouver face à un mauvais diagnostic, puis il y a le développement de médicaments qui tarde, sans compter les sommes exorbitantes que demandent les Pharmaceutiques pour certains de ces médicaments qui finissent par atteindre le marché. Parce qu'après tout, elles sont là pour faire du fric.

#AssuranceMaladie #Medicaments #Pharmaceutiques #Sante

Sorti en août dernier, une enquête de l’Unité d’éthique de l’Unité de recherche en éthique pragmatique de la santé de l’Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) révèle le parcours du combattant des personnes vivant avec une maladie rare.

Suivis médicaux lacunaires, difficulté à accéder à des soins adaptés, pertes de revenus liés à la perception qu’ont les autres de leur condition ne sont quelques exemples des obstacles que ces personnes rapportent rencontrer dans leur quotidien, selon l’enquête. Enquête de l’Unité d’éthique de l’IRCM

De fil en aiguille, j'ai découvert le Regroupement québécois des maladies orphelines et sur leur site, appris que plus d'un demi-million de Québécois·e·s sont touché·e·s par une maladie rare.

Plus de 5,5% de la population du Québec! Ça commence à faire du monde!

En fait, c'est une maladie qui affecte moins de 1 personne sur 2 000 dans la population. Il y en a plus de 7 000 au Québec et les trois-quart de ces maladies affectent des enfants.

J'ai aussi appris la différence entre maladie rare et maladie orpheline. En fait, la majorité des maladies rares sont orphelines de traitement. Moi qui croyais qu'il n'y avait que dans les pays du Sud que des maladies étaient sans traitement.

Il a fallu attendre 2022 avant que le gouvernement du Québec sorte enfin une politique québécoise pour les maladies rares, et 2023 pour qu'il se dote d'un Plan d'action québécois sur les maladies rares 2023-2027 .

La politique promet des soins qui soit de «qualité, qu’ils soient sécuritaires, équitables, inclusifs, adaptés à leurs besoins particuliers, accessibles et sensibilisés aux impératifs culturels».

Accessibles comme dans pas cher. Parce qu'il n'est pas rare que soigner une maladie rare se fasse à un coût astronomique.

J'ai dit qu'elles touchaient 5,5% de la population, les chiffres du ministère de la Santé est plus pessimiste; elles pourraient toucher jusqu’à 8 % de la population québécoise.

Selon Benoît Morin, Président de l’Association québécoise des pharmaciens propriétaires (AQPP), les «médicaments dits de spécialité seront de plus en plus nombreux sur le marché et nous devons, collectivement, trouver des solutions pour en gérer les coûts.»

Benoît Morin dénonce le peu de sous que la Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) consent au pharmacien et le dirigisme qui prévaut actuellement dans la dispensation des médicaments de spécialité.

De plus, le pharmacien assume la totalité du risque financier dans l’achat de ces médicaments et, de surcroît, il est le seul à le faire. Les grandes sociétés pharmaceutiques et les assureurs n’assument pour ainsi dire aucun risque financier dans la chaîne de soins. C’est ensemble que nous devrons trouver des solutions. La Presse.

On sent une critique du marché des médicaments dans un document du gouvernement canadien portant sur l'élaboration d’une stratégie nationale sur les médicaments onéreux pour le traitement des maladies rares publié en janvier 2021.

Les médicaments pour le traitement des maladies rares constituent le segment du marché pharmaceutique qui connaît la croissance la plus rapide au Canada, avec un taux de croissance annualisé de 32 % et représentant près d'un dixième des ventes de produits pharmaceutiques canadiens.

Peut-être qu'on devrait trouver une autre façon de développer les médicaments.

This is a test post

Whenever I meet someone that feels like they can be a potential partner, my brain automatically starts this pros and cons list to protect me from my emotions.

cons -he seems to be impatient/does not like to repeat himself -I think I make more than him -will he be able to handle family stress? -he does not like teaching and neither do I (thinking about if we had kids here) -he has female friends -we are both introverted -he ordered for me without asking me what I wanted (maybe he was anxious, not sure, it was a coffee drive through) -he did not ask many questions about me & mostly talked about himself -seems to see life in black and white

pros -he seems ready for a commitment -I liked his relationship with his family -he is handsome -talking with him is easy, we definitely have some chemistry -he is funny -he leads a healthy lifestyle -i like where he is in his relationship with god -easy going -he wants to live in germany eventually -I feel safe with him -I didn't feel drained the next day -he is more logical than emotional

my needs -I can be very anxious, need constant reassurance -I need someone to be very kind with me as I can be very sensitive -I am still not sure if I want kids -I need lots of personal space -Quality time and touch are important for me -I like breaking the routine/be open to trying new things often -liking his family and fitting in is important -sharing responsibilities and feeling that am not alone is important as I can feel judged easily

I rarely need a second date to be able to tell if I want to see them again or not, but this time I can't make up my mind?

anyway, let's start the day 👋

I'm writing this with voice to text while starting my trek back. If I'm being completely honest with myself, I never really read the things I write, at least I haven't really so far. And since I don't really intend for any of these posts to be consumed does it matter if I correct the grammar mistakes from voice to text or mistranslations? I guess not.

Yesterday I was feeling pretty shitty. I guess depressed would probably be a better word. Today also I felt worse, to the point where I genuinely started getting concerned. I decided I would go work out and then go on a long walk again. I finished working out and went home, grabbed a jacket and my weighted ankle set. I put in three bars on each side this time. I then just “fucked off into the woods”.

I think the first thing I always notice is how my body hurts. Specifically I felt the front part of my right shin hurting and my left hip hurting. But I also just keep going and eventually the pain goes away. I kind of reminds me of that “ someone told on Reddit, where they had broken some bone in their body and were afraid of pushing it too far during rehab. Their doctor said “Go and push yourself It will not break. And if it breaks, I will fix it. But it won't break.” I guess it's important to see yourself in the same light sometimes. I'm not as fragile as I think. And the pain of progress is better than the pain of regret.

I walked to the corner of the bluffs, at the nice little lookout point. I settled down there and brought out the book I've been Reading, which is something I've never actually really done before on my walks. I always kind of preserve reading to my bed right before I go to sleep but this was blissful. I think I ended up reading for more than an hour, which is way more than the 5 minutes I have to habitually force myself to do everyday.

I found myself distracted by thoughts only a few times, but looking at everything now while walking back I sort of think about how it's just a good day. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm a pretty cautious person I'd like to say, but I originally wanted to try mushrooms for my treatment resistant depression. I ended up painfully tapering off of my medication for several months, and bought some shrooms from someone with the hopes of not being depressed. Turns out I have a fairly high tolerance, and I ended up not really feeling anything like I expected. I remember describing it as just a good day. Is there anything more than that that I need?

I guess I kind of suffocate myself with quotes to try to change my mindset, things like life was not meant to be a punishment. But I still struggle to I guess internalize that stuff. Mike Tyson has a quote everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face, surprisingly that applies to a lot more than I thought. It's hard to remember that things like going to the gym or taking a long walk or reading make me happy. It's easy to forget that stuff. But just because I forget it doesn't mean it's any less true.

Walking like this kind of feels like a guide for a living life sometimes. Half the time it's peaceful and bliss where I just enjoy the sounds of nature or whatever I'm listening to. Or just thinking. And half the time it is pain and an uncomfortable situation, where I just want to stop. In both cases I'm not doing anything wrong and the things I'm supposed to do kind of stay the same. One foot in front of the other just keep walking. And it's a funny little trick of the mind where I always forget what everything other than my present experience is like. When it's bad I forget that I can be good. When it's good I forget that could be bad. I am the same person for going through life normally; I forget what it's like to be depressed when I'm not, and vice versa.

Well I was resting in between sets at the gym I was trying to read about how to make my life more and what other people had figured out. One person while talking about phone usage mentioned what do you want from yourself in five or 10 years. And then something along the lines of make a plan for that that is tangible. Well walking back there were three dogs all of different breeds walking with two women coming towards me. I asked if I could pet them and I did very briefly. I think that's a good life. I would like to have hash with me, And maybe also a golden retriever. Three dogs would be a full house I think. Nothing wrong with that, it just may not leave space for much more. I think I would be happy surrounded by them as I wouldn't be alone. And I feel like I would be fulfilled with them by my side. I know a lot of people mention that they don't like the idea of living alone as it would get too boring and isolating. I'm really grateful I have hash and also my online friends, as that's my version of not being alone always. It's also nice because I don't need to worry about long distance or stuff like that. But also I guess that is the cost of being online friends. They are long distance and stuff like that.

A book that caught my eye at Barnes & nobles yesterday was a fiction book about a woman who just gets up and leaves her life after her sister dies. It's a story and her account of traveling and figuring out life. The summary on the back of the book mentioned about how she was able to conceal her inner struggles from all often new people she meets while overseas. And It mentions about how she struggles with a fact of “if she can conceal who she is to the outside world, how can she know what she is”. Or something along those lines I've probably butchered it. But I guess that whole idea of The disconnect between being, and being observed. I think I want to get that book, because it's a very good question but I kind of struggle with. I guess it's very tangentially related to the fear of being forgotten by history. There is a very high chance that I will do nothing notable in my life to warrant being remembered years after my death. This thought has never really concerned me, but also what does that mean I guess. If my entire life's contribution can be essentially ignored, what is the purpose of my life. I guess this is the whole issue with voting, where my individual vote really doesn't matter and changes nothing. But I guess if everyone thought that it would change things. So maybe I'm a hypocrite, for not voting. Because the equivalent thought I think is recognizing that your individual contribution is meaningless, and still working hard to make that contribution. I wonder if history is a reversible process. Could my random action today be traced directly to some future consequence, with no other path to that future? If that's the case then what I do has meaning. Maybe not in a way that I can see or in a way that matters, but it still would have meaning nonetheless. I guess this fundamentally means nothing and changes nothing, but it's something that's reassuring to me for some reason.

I have successfully rambled back to civilization about 2 mi without even noticing it. What a curious experience. Thank you to myself for getting up and going on this walk.

Prayers, etc.: • 06:00 – Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, followed by the Angelus • 07:50 – The Glorious Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. Followed by The Memorare • 12:00 – the Angelus • 12:20 – The Collect of the Mass for Pentecost Sunday: O God, who on this day didst teach the hearts of Thy faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit: grant unto us, by the same Spirit, to be wise in what is right, and ever to rejoice in His consolation. • 18:00 – the Angelus • 19:15 – The hour of Compline for tonight according to the Traditional Pre-Vatican II Divine Office, followed by Fr. Chad Rippberger's Prayer of Command to protect my family, my sons, my daughter and her family, my granddaughters and their families, my great grandchildren, and everyone for whom I have responsibility from any demonic activity. – And that followed by the Sunday Prayers of the Association of the Auxilium Christianorum.

Health Metrics: • bw= 221.20 lbs. • bp= 136/76 (72)

Diet: • 07:45 – ½ pb&j sandwich, applesauce • 09:00 – sausage, big stuffed omelet, pancakes (more than I could possibly eat, had to send ~half of the omelet and pancakes back to the kitchen.) • 15:30 – finally finished the omelet and pancakes from breakfast. • 17:00 – sweet rice and brown sugar dessert

Chores, etc.: • 08:45 – monitored bank accounts activity • 12:00 – adjusted upcoming Amazon subscribe and save order • 12:30 – have tuned into the Red Sox vs Cardinals game, already in the 2nd inning. Will stay for a few more innings before switching over to the Rangers vs Angels afternoon game. • 13:10 – fixed outside water faucet leak • 16:00 – after the Rangers game, now watching PGA Tour golf • 18:00 – listening to relaxing music and reading

Chess: • 11:50 – moved in all pending CC games

posted Sunday 19/May/2024 ~20:15 #DLMAY2024

Data curated for us, through media outlets, search engines results, and algorithm-based social media applications often comes at the cost of the privacy of personal information in the digital environment. As access to information gets easier in digital environments, concerns around personal privacy become increasingly apparent. This is particularly true for students, where digital technologies may be used and required in the classroom setting as part of an educator’s educational methodologies toolkit. It is therefore interesting to consider a librarian’s role in advocating for, teaching about, and facilitating access to information regarding digital privacy both at the student-level and educator-level.

In beginning to understand what digital privacy training or information dissemination may look like in relation to educational technology (EdTech) I’ve come across some starting point resources for digital privacy literacy.

Curriculum and Pedagogy:

Digital pedagogy may be an entry point into understanding the use of digital technologies in the classroom setting as it is underpinned by a critical pedagogical perspective. Digital pedagogy is built upon theories such as constructivism, connectivism, and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) and can result in the use of “innovative teaching strategies” such as gamification and flipped classrooms.

Much of writing surrounding digital pedagogy appears to be written in the context of digital humanities and EdTech, however, there seems to be the opportunity to bridge digital pedagogy and the issues surrounding digital privacy through a socio-technical perspective on information systems. Bringing together science and technology studies, socio-technical approaches are able to acknowledge that information (digital) technologies are not neutral, evoking through criticality a myriad of relevant questions such as digital inclusion, accessibility, data security, and could further extend to promoting participatory approaches in the context of learning.

Keywords and ideas for further exploration:

#digitalfootprint as a key component of #digitalcitizenship has already been advocated for adoption in early literacy instruction. It is interesting to consider what it may look like to extend digital literacy education for young adults and children to further include #digitalprivacy as an aspect of online safety. In the context of EdTech specifically, researchers at the University of Chicago and New York University have found that frequently used EdTech software tools are deploying the use of cookies and trackers to collect #personalinformation of students (and any user) bringing security and privacy concerns to the forefront of the softwares’ use.

Why now and what’s next:

In a post-COVID-19 world we know that digital tools are here to stay. EdTech software will presumably be a mainstay of educational tools but with recent (2022) findings published by Internet Safety Labs suggesting that 96% of surveyed EdTech apps share children’s data with third-party companies often without consent and include the use of targeted digital advertising there is a clear need to explore student privacy data protection training. However, when investigating training resources about digital privacy and digital safety in schools using EdTech software, the Chicago-NYC study found that school districts cited a lack of resources including both IT personnel and those with knowledge of security and privacy issues to provide further training. It will be interesting to explore this educational gap through the perspective of teacher librarianship, which may seek to use EdTech through digital pedagogy as a means to demonstrate the inherent negotiation between the values and adverse aspects of using digital technologies.

I hope that this investigation will further my knowledge of how to incorporate, communicate, and enhance my own learning about digital privacy education within age-appropriate contexts such as at the primary or secondary school levels.

If you’re asking – “but what do I do as an educator or librarian, I need this information now!” here is a consumable yet informative 5 minute video that presents some of the information privacy concerns regarding student data:

An acceptable Sunday winds down. The SleepyTime tea is slowly cooling down to a sippable temperature. Night prayers have yet to be said, but I'll get to them soon.

Hoping for a good night's sleep and a better, more productive Monday.

posted Sunday, May 19, 2024 at ~7:09 PM #QNMAY2024

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge and the Dallas skyline in the background.

#SliceOfLife #Skyline

#Orchestry #Teams #PowerShell

My company recently performed a domain name change in SharePoint and Entra ID/Azure AD. Among other things, this migration required us to re-install and re-deploy Orchestry from scratch.

After re-installation, some sites did not have the correct “Team Information” tab listed in the General channel. “Team Information” is a critical tab that is installed/added to a Team when the Team is provisioned through the regular Orchestry workflow. Without the tab, regular users can't request or add new Guests to the Team, which is a huge headache if your tenant is configured for Orchestry governance and have dis-allowed any Guest additions, aside from admins. The tab appears like this:

In the case of our migration, this tab wasn't showing the correct information and wouldn't load on all sites that were created with Orchestry. This tab was also missing on all other Teams that weren't provisioned using Orchestry.

To fix this issue, I wrote a PowerShell script that adds the tab to the General channel on all Teams in bulk.

Before running, make sure you update line 14 with Connect-PnPOnline -Interactive -url 'https://XXX-admin.sharepoint.com' to your correct tenant name.

Here's the script:

## Add-OrchestryTeamTabToGeneralChannel.ps1
## tdannecy@gmail.com 2024-05-19
## Imports a csv of Teams or gets all Teams, iterates through each one, then adds the Orchestry app and correct "Team Information" tab on the General channel.
## Requires Teams Administrator permissions in Entra ID/AAD, Powershell 7, Teams Preview Powershell module, and PnPPowershell module installed and configured in Entra ID/AAD.
## Teams Preview help from: https://chrishayward.co.uk/2020/08/24/microsoft-teams-installing-powershell-preview-beta-modules-manage-private-channels/

## Environment setup and config commands.
Set-Executionpolicy Unrestricted
winget install --id Microsoft.Powershell --source winget
& 'C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\pwsh.exe'
Install-module -name 'pnp.powershell' -RequiredVersion 2.4.0
Install-Module -Name MicrosoftTeams -RequiredVersion 1.1.3-preview -AllowPrerelease
Import-Module -name 'Pnp.Powershell' -RequiredVersion 2.4.0
Connect-PnPOnline -Interactive -url 'https://XXX-admin.sharepoint.com'
cd D:\ # To get around issue with apostrophe in my username
Import-Module -name 'MicrosoftTeams' -RequiredVersion 1.1.3-preview -AllowPrerelease
Connect-MicrosoftTeams

## Get the Orchestry App ID
$orchestryappid = (Get-TeamsApp -displayname 'Orchestry').Id

## Import all Teams or from a CSV.
$teams = Get-team 
## CSV format
## TeamName, MailNickName
## KPI Task Force [EXT], KPITaskForceEXT
## IMP Shared Workspace [EXT], imp-shared-workspace-ext
#$teams = import-csv -path D:\teams1.csv

foreach ($team in $teams) {
    $groupid = (Get-PnpTeamsTeam -Identity $team.MailNickName).GroupId

    if ($groupid) {
        Add-TeamsAppInstallation -appid $orchestryappid -teamid $groupid
        Remove-PnPTeamsTab -team $groupid -channel 'General' -Identity 'Team Information' -force:$true -Erroraction SilentlyContinue
        add-pnpteamstab -team $groupid -channel 'General' -DisplayName 'Team Information' -Type custom -TeamsAppId $orchestryappid -Contenturl "https://app.orchestry.com/tabs/team-information?tid=$($groupid)&siteinfo=true&owners=true&members=true"
    }
    else {
        Write-Error 'Team not found: $($team.DisplayName)'
    }
}

Here's the script through Gist: https://gist.github.com/tdannecy/443788404bee7f816482710a37f98af7

This script required a lot of digging into old PowerShell modules for the commands to work correctly. The command Add-TeamsAppInstallation was a hard one to track down and the pnp.powershell module required some setup ahead of time.

You can use this script with other apps and websites that you want to load in a tab, just switch out the Appid with your app and the -Contenturl with the page you want to load.

At the end of the day, this fixed my company's issue and added the correct “Team Information” Orchestry tab to all General channels in Teams.

A lot of literary magazines have basically the same deal. There are slight variations in the genre, length, and vibe of the things they publish, but you’ll find the submission guidelines of most journals are 90% identical (sometimes even repeating the exact same phrases), and their format is equally homogeneous: prose and/or poetry, published either in a book-like form or as web pages.

And not that there’s anything wrong with that. A straightforward, expected format keeps the reader’s focus mostly on the work itself, and that’s where it should be. But I’m always excited when I’m scrolling through open calls and I stumble across a market that breaks this mold. Even if it’s not a place any of my current work will fit, I find I’ll often add these to my list of journals I go to just as a reader—which is a much shorter list, that’s much more difficult for a journal to land a place on, than the magazines I read with the goal of deciding if my work would fit in their pages.

So for other folks out there who appreciate places that do things differently, here are a few journals that stand out from the rest for you to be hip to if you’re not already.

The Keepthings

• Open for submissions: Year-round
• Costs: Free
• Pays: Nope

Lots of literary journals have an Instagram, but The Keepthings is the only one I know that actually publishes on the platform (they also have a Substack, if you’re not a social media person). The content on The Keepthings follows a very specific format. Each post is a photo of a keepthing, which they define as “an object you hang on to because it connects you to someone dear to you who died,” accompanied by a brief (600 word or less) narrative about the person and how the object related to them.

While this obviously isn’t a place you’ll want to send your usual array of stories and poems, they do take submissions from anyone with an object and a story to tell about it. This is one that creative nonfiction writers and readers will want to take particular note of.

Plotopolis

• Open for submissions: Yes (no stated closing date)
• Costs: Free
• Pays: .08/word

There isn’t a ton on this site yet—but based on what they do have, I’m very excited to see what they plan to do in the future. Plotopolis is a journal for interactive fiction, specifically those that follow a choose-your-own format. They have fairly specific guidelines about the work sent their way, but they are actively seeking submissions for their debut issue (and they’ve even posted a few story ideas/wishlists on their blog if you’re intrigued but need some ideas to get you started).

Voidspace

• Open for submissions: Year-round
• Costs: Free
• Pays: Nope

This is another one for interactive art, and a broader variety of it than you’ll find on Plotopolis. This includes stories that are played like games, suites of hyperlinked poems, stories told in diagrams, and other works that make the reader/viewer a part of the experience.

Voidspace has been around for a minute, with 10 issues and other projects in between them, so they’ve got a good amount of stuff to check out. That’s also handy if you’re thinking about submitting to them because you can get a good sense of the variety of interactive things they publish (they also do non-interactive things in their unnumbered issues, if you like the cut of their jib but don’t play in an interactive sandbox).

Sixfold

• Open for submissions: through July 24th (for the fall issue)
• Costs: $5
• Pays: $1,000 for each genre winner (no payment for other contributors)

The published issues of Sixfold don’t look any different than your typical online literary journal. What’s unique about this one is how the work in those issues are chosen. Instead of an editor board picking stories and poems, submitters vote on each other’s pieces over three rounds. At the end, the top story and poem win $1,000 each, and the top 15 stories and top 30 poems are published.

The best part of this from a submitter’s perspective is that other writers don’t just vote on your entry. They also get the option to provide feedback, which gets passed along to you after the voting finished. This means you can get comments from as many as 78 different people if your work makes it through all 3 rounds. While not everyone will leave comments, that’s still a lot of potential eyes and comments, and ones you can count on to provide a somewhat objective opinion.

Total Quality Reading

• Open for submissions: Year-round
• Costs: Free
• Pays: $50

Another journal to be aware of if you’re looking for transparency in the work selection process. Total Quality Reading (or TQR) also has a unique conceit—as they say, stories are their business, and they veer into the lingo associated with that claim. Stories are “capital gains” or “assets”, submitters are “venture capitalists”, and there’s a host of other lingo you can find on their website.

TQR still uses readers and editors, and isn’t fully open-voted like Sixfold. But the comments from reviewers are posted publicly on their “New Free Market” forum, so if your work is under consideration you’ll get to see exactly what the readers thought throughout the process. Reading through past comments can also give you some useful insights into the types of stories the editors are looking for and what catches their attention (in a good or bad way).

After Dinner Conversation

• Open for submissions: Year-round
• Costs: Free ($12 for “Fast Pass” submissions)
• Pays: $75

This is another one that looks and reads like your standard literary journal. What’s unique about it is the theme of its content, which all asks “thought-provoking questions about ethics, philosophy, and social issues.” They publish one issue a month, and subscribers also get stories emailed to them, usually accompanied by a poll or question to prompt further thought about the ethical quandary raised in the piece.

Workers Write!

• Open for submissions: Through December 31, 2024
• Costs: Free
• Pays: $5-$50, depending on length

I’ll finish out the list with one more that’s unique because of the type of stuff they publish. Workers Write! is dedicated exclusively to—you guessed it—writing about work. Each issue centers on a different profession. Their upcoming Issue 21 will be Tales from the Cleaners, featuring stories from the POV of janitors, housekeepers, and other folks who clean up after the rest of us. Past editions have focused on construction sites, desk jobs, classrooms, and other places where people work. In between their full issues they release the Overtime series, which are standalone stories on the longer side.

I have a soft spot in my heart for blue collar poetry and prose, which is what made Workers Write! first catch my attention. It also touches on a major issue I often see in fiction: writers forget that their characters, for the most part, will need to have jobs. That will never be a concern with something you read in Workers Write! (and, for writers with day jobs, it’s nice to think there’s a home for whatever you write about it).

See similar posts:

#Publishing #Submissions #InteractiveFiction #Feedback

#001697 – 28 de Abril de 2024

Há quem sinta conforto na existência de Deus. Na ideia de que todo o sofrimento, toda a violência que assolam a humanidade fazem parte de um desígnio maior. Esta ideia horroriza-me. Antes me reconforta pensar que isto não tem nenhum propósito, nem advém de nenhum plano.

Picked up Fallout 4

#SliceOfLife