iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sorry again, amigo! Definitely has taken way longer than I ever imagined, but this is what I get for being a stubborn asshole and doing everything by myself, lmao

Thanks for your understanding, your patience, and I love ya all -John

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One day, when both my feet are firmly planted, I’d love to do an anthology of the magazine, to get authors paid and to capture the essence of the mag. And maybe, if I can manage it, I’d like to turn CS into a small press or imprint. But I need time to get balanced and in a healthy place for that

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Cold Signal won’t go away forever by any means, but it’s never meant to be a venue that keeps regular hours and turns a profit. It was meant to be a gallery space for great writing, and it’s been that, and I’m proud of it.

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Full honesty: I’m spread thin. I’m working two jobs and dealing with a lot of personal issues, and if you follow my personal account you’ve probably been made aware I’m hanging on for dear life.

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Hey pals, CS update: Novelettes are still in consideration. Sorry for the delay. Novelette summer will be novelette fall and winter as I got way more than I expected. But once this is done, CS will be going into stasis for a time.

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Hey bud, still in the works. Have had to put everything CS on the back burner the last few months. Apologies for the delay. Hoping to get to it soon, but the novelettes will likely be the last of CS for a while, at least until I’m done working two jobs

Also this gives us all more time to read and appreciate everyone in the three massive and filled with bangers issues on the site hahaha I’d also like to, if I can afford it, join SFWA and HWA and whatever else I need to do to promote Issue 3 and novelette peeps come award seasons

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I will say from what I’ve read, there’s a LOT of good shit here, and way more submissions than I was expecting, so kinda thinking I might do novelette fall and winter and wait to do the next full issue till 2026???

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Just as an update to all interested parties, I’ve been extremely busy the past few weeks and as such it’s been slow going through the novelettes. I don’t want to reject anyone just bc I’m not in peak submission reading condition so please don’t be discouraged by radio silence!

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 02/07/2025

Extremely, deeply pleased to see Karlo Yeager Rodriguez (@kjy1066.bsky.social) on the Nebula Reading List for his wonderful story "A Line of Ink, Stretching Back Like a Shadow" in the latest issue of Cold Signal. A wonderful testament to Karlo's craft and the quality of the story itself

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Thanks so much for reading and sharing! Spencer wrote a gorgeous one here

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Reposted by Cold Signal Magazine

Pat Foran @pdforan.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Happy to have a story on this year’s @wigleaf.bsky.social longlist. Thank you @laughingyeti.bsky.social and the Wigleaf readers and series editors for selecting it. And thank you, always, @johnchrostek.com for publishing the piece in @cold-signal.com

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 28/06/2025

Psyched to see @pdforan.bsky.social’s story from Issue 2 of Cold Signal in the @wigleaf.bsky.social 2025 long list alongside so many other wonderful names of friends and talents! Wigleaf has always done a wonderful job championing short fiction + it’s lovely to see Pat’s work + CS make the list

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 20/06/2025

Today’s the last call for novelette submissions! As a reminder, it’s novelettes only at this time :)

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 16/06/2025

Quick note: I've gone in and made a change to the Submissions page to reflect that previous inclusion in a Cold Signal issue is not disqualifying for the novelette calls. Novelette Summer is a block party and I'd love a mix of new and familiar voices getting funky with the format

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 16/06/2025

Novelette Week is here! Until Friday, I'll be accepting submissions for strange, singular + surreal novelettes between 7k-18k in length. To best understand Cold Signal's house style, reading prior issues is recommended. More info about submitting can be found here: cold-signal.com/submissions/

SUBMISSIONS NOVELETTE SUBMISSION WINDOW:JUNE 16-20th 2025 7K- 18k WORD COUNTNo ThemeSee Fiction Submission Guidelines Below MAIN ISSUE SUBMISSIONS CLOSEDUNTIL LATER THIS YEAR (Will be a Themed Issu…

SUBMISSIONS

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 09/06/2025

Sure! Just preferably only submit one, longer submissions this go round means no wiggle room on submitting multiples (gotta protect my sanity lol)

Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 09/06/2025

ONE WEEK UNTIL NOVELETTE WEEK!!! cold-signal.com/submissions/ SEND ME SOME WEIRD NOVELETTES!

collage image that reads "Cold Signal novelette series"
novelette submission window:
JUNE 16th-20th 2025

7k-18k Word Count
No Theme
See Fiction Submission Guidelines Below

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 04/06/2025

Novelette Summer is here and it's happening! Love to see it & love Strange Horizons! As a reminder, Cold Signal will also be open for novelettes from the 16th-20th. CS's tastes skew towards the weird and genre-agnostic. Check out our backlog for a taste of the house style. Long live the novelette!

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Reposted by Cold Signal Magazine

Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 16/05/2025

COLD SiGNAL UPDATES: Novelette submission window: June 16th-20th. No theme. Aiming to publish a handful throughout the summer, spaced out. 7k-18k length. Issue Four later this year. Themed. Haven't officially settled on a theme yet, but leaning towards THE CREATURE. Demons, beasts, oddities & us.

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 21/05/2025

Bumping this up! Sharpen them novelettes, people :)

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 16/05/2025

If this post is your first Cold Signal exposure, I highly recommend perusing the three issues and pilot novelette on the site (cold-signal.com) CS is a digital literary magazine publishing the Weird, the beautiful, the mad and the free. Each entry is accompanied by an ekphrastic digital collage!

a genre lit mag exploring the existential questions of today & tomorrow.

COLD SIGNAL

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 16/05/2025

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Reposted by Cold Signal Magazine

corvyn @corvyna.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

very dizzying piece of contemporary weird horror, twists structure in some very chewy, evocative ways

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Reposted by Cold Signal Magazine

Beegshotdeentcha @amityvandal.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

National Short Story Month means you should read great short stories, like A Ways Off by @addisonzeller.bsky.social in @cold-signal.com Issue 3: Underworld. A hotel and a house and all kinds of weird happenings. Oh and a brass button. cold-signal.com/a-ways-off-a...

A Ways Off – Addison Zeller

A Ways Offby Addison Zeller The hotel restaurant was closed. Beetles had eaten the carpets. “We used to sell oysters,” the manager told me when I handed in my references. “These don’t matter,” she …

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Cold Signal Magazine @cold-signal.com · 29/04/2025

Been thinking about making a direct transfer Cold Signal shirt in the next few months, once Evening House is hopefully secure and I can get a transfer machine. Mainly to have one for myself, but maybe make a few extra too for those interested. Trying out some designs that might look cool on a shirt

cold signal: "literature for the weird, the beautiful, the mad and the free"
a figure in a red robe with an old monitor for a head, pierced by a dagger, dripping a red sword lily like blood from his back, with strange white waves in the background over total black

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I think the bit was that biden sucks and led us to hell

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i just had these laying around, don't even remember the original bit I made them for cold-signal.com

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people are wandering Issue Three: UNDERWORLD, filled with bangers, in search of something or someone

joe biden wandering the foggy streets of silent hill

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people are finding singular, electric weird fiction, poetry and cnf on cold signal

joe biden, lost in foggy trees
caption: "it is happening again"

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Browse and download high-resolution, public domain Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations and Posters.

My personal favorite is artvee.com. Tightly curated, high quality images. All public domain. It's my main resource for CS.

artvee.com

Artvee

And last but not least, we have Thomas Zimmerman's three poems, dark myths and Shakespearean drama painted over the subtle gaps that often widen around men, leaving room for painful haunting cold-signal.com/three-poems-...

Three Poems – Thomas Zimmerman

Three Poemsby Thomas Zimmerman NOCTURNE (VII) Your father’s dead but haunts like Hamlet’s dad,while indecision slips its noose aroundyour neck: To kill? To die? To live? Forgivethe banshees, incubi…

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Stephen Mead, resident artist & curator of the The Chroma Museum, gives us three wonderful poems exploring queer identity in an age of violence & learning from the insect world to develop a beautiful shimmering exoskeleton to protect & express the beating heart within cold-signal.com/three-poems-...

Three Poems – Stephen Mead

Three Poemsby Stephen Mead CARAPACE Horny is this scarab head, & these plates, luminous—–Shell of locust wings meeting rainbow bubblesbut shellacked as enamel, nail-hard & clack…

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@spencerwriting.bsky.social goes high-concept SF and explores the illusory catharsis of Heaven Industries, told from the perspective of a programmed ghost born to play psychopomp & judge. Do all things, living or otherwise, yearn to be free? cold-signal.com/the-problem-...

The Problem of Evil – Spencer Nitkey

The Problem of Evilby Spencer Nitkey I am Mother and Father’s final test. The fluorescent moon, that diadem of Heaven Industries, smiles a crooked, asteroid ridden smile. It is so close I feel I co…

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@robertarjoyan.bsky.social brings us this propulsive, conversational horror tale of fathers, daughters and Los Angeles' Armenian diaspora, centering on the strange bargains one makes with mattress-ridden corpses & what aspects of others we might like to disappear cold-signal.com/in-an-alley-...