Oracle Stories & Letters

[sarahfru]

Anyone know anything about this journal?

I know you're scratching your head. This journal has zero web presence. I queried them over a year ago and they accepted my short story in April. Frankly, it was an old piece that I had shopped around for a long time and was happy when it was over. It's a quarterly mag, no payment for FNASR. The publisher, Obi Harrison Ekwonna, said I would be receiving a contributor's copy.

This month I was contacted by a journal (that has plenty of web presence) that wants second rights to reprint the story. I had queried them and withdrew when it was accepted by OSL, but they really want it anyway. That's when I remembered, Did the quarterly issue come out? Where's my copy?. I emailed Ekwonna, the only way I know to get in touch with them, and haven't heard back. With such a particular name, I'm sure it's the Ekwonna that graduated from Howard U in 1983 (thanks, google), so it's a real person. It's still not very comforting.

Similar experiences? Concerns?

 

[CaoPaux]

As I expect you've seen, the only mention of OS&L outside your own announcements is at: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/70159-oracle-stories-letters

If you don't hear back from Obi, you might try contacting the other authors as to whether they ever received their issue, etc.

 

[Lamadon]

They accepted a story of mine two years ago. I got an email stating "Please be aware that we have accepted your story." It wasn't one of my best. By the time I got the email I had already given up on it.

I never received a copy.

 

[sarahfru]

Still no word from the editor. I have no idea what other writers were in the issue since I never received a copy.

Right there with you Lamadon, I was happy to find the story a home in the first place. I'll just chalk it up to experience. I've never seen the journal and I wonder who has. It's probably some weird in-house circulation at a tin-can factory. Oh well.

 

[ElisabethF]

I sent an email to the editor of this publication almost two months ago requesting their writers' guidelines, after seeing their listing in Writer's Market. I never got a reply. After reading this thread, I guess that isn't such a bad thing.

 

[HapiSofi]

If Oracle accepted your work for publication, but have never published it, never published anything else, and have not responded to your attempts to communicate with them, it is reasonable to infer that the basis for your agreement has ceased to exist. Send them a letter -- a registered letter wouldn't be a bad idea -- saying you're withdrawing your work.