Editor Interview: Sci-Fi Lampoon Magazine

Speculative funny stuff.

All the greats, Mad Magazine, Weekly World News, the backs of cereal boxes.

Ray Bradbury, CS Lewis, Harry Harrison, Arthur C. Clarke, Alan Moore, Cassandra Khaw, Douglas Adams, Kilgore Trout, Joseph Heller, Rumi, Hunter S. Thompson, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, Terry Pratchett, Harry Turtledove, Doc Hammer, Christopher McCulloch, Adam Joseph Stump, GD Deckard, Geoff Habiger, Mike Van Horn, Rick Ty, Ian K, Margret A. Treiber.

We can't claim complete uniqueness, we are quantumly entangled with a magazine that is currently en route to Kepler-42.

Please make sure you were giggling maniacally when you wrote your story. We accept speculative humor. That means some elements of science fiction, fantasy, or horror needs to be present. Any mix of those is fine. Weird is encouraged. But it must be funny.
A legible format is also a plus, standard manuscript format (https://www.shunn.net/format/story.html) would be super cool, but not a requirement. Please, we beg you, at least use your grammar and spelling software before you send your submission. We edit but don't task us.

Funny. Freaking funny. Make us wet ourselves laughing. Sarcasm is good. Goofy is fine. If you have a message and some depth to your story, we're good with that. But the best submission is one that makes us laugh.

Not being funny. I mean, crap, this is a humor magazine. Don't be unfunny, bitches.

Not really. In fact, when someone submits some crap about how they were in this and that and how glorious their writing career is, it just makes me scrutinize their submission more. I mean, you were in "Supercoolio Magazine", your story should be super awesome. Right, buddy? Give us the skinny on who you are, briefly tell us what you've done, but we don't need an extensive catalog of your great works.

We read the whole thing unless it goes over the word limit. Even if it looks like it's not a fit in the first few paragraphs, we give it a look-see to make sure it isn't just slow in the beginning. I'm sure we'll have exceptions, but that's my answer and I'm sticking with it.

Once we decide to accept a submission, we print it out and painstakingly fold each page into a tasteful origami of robotic genitalia. Then we offer the pages to the machine spirit. Any pages that are rejected by the mightly silicon mind are torn from the story and we reread the story sans those pages. If it still makes sense, we keep it.
No, seriously, we just read your stuff and if it's good and we laugh, we accept it.

I make sure the boss at my shitty cheese job isn't around, then I download your submission. I read it. If it makes me laugh and briefly forget my bleak, miserable existence, I message the other editors and say, "Hey this crap is funny." Then they take a peek and if they agree, we put it in the "yes" folder. If it isn't even slightly funny, I curse your name and beg the universe for righteous vengeance. Then I usually slam my fist on my desk and whine about hurting my hand.

We will not publish poop. That being said, we provide basic copy editing, which typically does not require author approval. So essentially, make sure your submission is edited to your liking before sending it in, and if accepted, we'll do a basic cleanup if necessary.

We haven't had the opportunity yet. So for now, the answer is no. This may change.