Would you read a journal/magazine dedicated to wuxia and historical fiction?

[whiteskwirl]

For a while I've been wanting to start my own literary journal. It would give me practice designing them, and it would also give me the chance to expose others to the kinds of stories I'm interested in. An English language journal dedicated to wuxia and historical fiction is what I'm planning on making. Wuxia is a very new genre for the English language, consisting mostly of fan translations and fan fiction, as well as the few wuxia movies that make it over to English-speaking countries.

My plan is for the journal to contain the following:

• short stories
• poetry
• articles about wuxia and chinese history (or the history of other East Asian countries)
• book and movie reviews
• serialized fiction

The main focus will be on Chinese fiction, but I would take submissions pertaining to Japan and Korea and Vietnam, etc. as well. My hope is to get some quality novels serialized and release an issue either monthly or bi-weekly, depending on a number of factors. A monthly release is probably what I will shoot for at first.

The journal will be free to readers and will not pay anything to contributors and will be released electronically as a PDF file and as an EPUB file so that readers can read the issue on their e-readers if they have one.

So my questions to you are:

Would you read such a publication?
And would you be interested in submitting content to the journal, either in the form of a story or an article or review?

I'm only looking for general interest at the moment, so answering yes to number 2 is not committing to anything.

NOTE: By historical fiction, I'm referring not only to works based on real events or people, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but also any story which takes place in an historical setting, such as pre-modern Chinese stories (Feng Menglong's collections, Pu Songling's collection, etc.)

[forgot password]

Perhaps I'll read your magazine, but I'd never become a long-time reader of it as I'm only interested in matters related to Jin Yong novels and major Chinese historical novels such as Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, Romance of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Shuihu Zhuan,... Pretty much all of those matters have already been discussed on the Internet by fans so there's not many topics left, if any, for you to write about.

[wkeej]

Perhaps five years ago, I will read your magazine faithfully. I have lost much interest in wuxia today. Nevertheless, I believe there will be many leisure readers like me.

[whiteskwirl]

Thanks to everyone who commented and voted in the poll. The Kunlun Journal of Chinese Historical Fiction is now accepting submissions for the first issue. You can read the submission guidelines here: http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/. If anyone has any questions or comments, I'll be glad to answer them.

[wkeej]

Thanks to everyone who commented and voted in the poll. The Kunlun Journal of Chinese Historical Fiction is now accepting submissions for the first issue. You can read the submission guidelines here: http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/. If anyone has any questions or comments, I'll be glad to answer them.

Coming from the outside world in marketing, your journal has to be more authentic. E.g. at least you need to have a proper editorial board, with full names, designations. Or else, who will want to submit original stuff?

[forgot password]

Cool. I'm looking forward to the 1st issue. Hopefully some history fan will care to translate the Dong Zhou Lie Guo Zhi (Romance of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty) by Feng Menglong into English. So far as Chinese historical novels are concerned, I think DZLGZ is second only to the 3 Kingdoms.

[whiteskwirl]

Cool. I'm looking forward to the 1st issue. Hopefully some history fan will care to translate the Dong Zhou Lie Guo Zhi (Romance of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty) by Feng Menglong into English. So far as Chinese historical novels are concerned, I think DZLGZ is second only to the 3 Kingdoms.

That would be really cool, but I would be surprised if anyone would undertake such a mammoth task.

[forgot password]

Yes, this novel is huge, heavily history-oriented and has many poems so it's sure hard to translate. I myself am a bad rookie when it comes to translation but by the time I'm done with Tian Long Ba Bu (5 more chapters, may take me 3 more months ), if there's still no one taking up this task, I'll give it a try.

[whiteskwirl]

Yes, this novel is huge, heavily history-oriented and has many poems so it's sure hard to translate. I myself am a bad rookie when it comes to translation but by the time I'm done with Tian Long Ba Bu (5 more chapters, may take me 3 more months ), if there's still no one taking up this task, I'll give it a try.

Good luck with the rest of your translation. And thanks for translating. Seems like it's a mostly thankless job, but such efforts are invaluable to the global community.

[whiteskwirl]

A special introductory issue will be releasing soon, hopefully next week. The cover art is up for you to look at: http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/20...ming-soon.html

[whiteskwirl]

The special introductory issue of Kunlun Journal is now available: http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/20...0-is-here.html

[whiteskwirl]

UPDATE: My State of the Journal Address, in which I talk about what to expect from the journal in the coming year: http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/20...f-journal.html

[whiteskwirl]

UPDATE: Kunlun Journal is calling for submissions of novels and novellas for serialization on the site: http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/20...alization.html

Here is the text of the blog post linked to above so you don't have to go to another site to read it:

This is something I've been wanting to do for a while now. Kunlun Journal is only going to be published every four months, which means most of the year there won't be new material being published. I plan to update the blog regularly as I have been doing, and the new forum will hopefully provide an outlet for discussion and community development, but I want something more.

Wuxia, specifically, has a history of being released serially, as installments in newspapers. Jin Yong, by far the most well known and successful wuxia novelist, got his start publishing serially. His first novel, Book and Sword, Gratitude and Revenge, was first published serially in The New Evening Post, a Hong Kong newspaper. Two years later, Jin Yong founded his own newspaper, Ming Pao, and he used the serialization of his own novels to keep his newspaper going.

I would like to follow in that tradition and publish novels serially on this site. Doing so will give readers something to look forward to, a reason to come to this site besides blog updates. If a novel becomes popular, the forums can be used to discuss the story, thereby helping the forum and, subsequently, the community, grow. And of course, serializing a novel on the site means that more wuxia or historical fiction is being written, and that's always a good thing.

So Kunlun Journal is calling for novels to be serialized on the site. If you have a novel that is written, then you can submit. But even if your novel is not complete, or even not started, you can still submit your idea. Writing on the fly is the way is used to be done, and not just wuxia. Charles Dickens and others in his day published their stories serially and wrote as they went along as well. There's no reason we can't still do that today.

Novels accepted for serialization will be published on this site, with its own page and a link on the navigation bar at the top of this site. Each installment will be published as a regular blog post, as well as on the novel's individual page. The individual page will serve as an archive for readers who may have missed an installment, preventing the need to hunt through blog posts or search keyword tags to find the part you missed. Installments will be updated either daily, several times a week, or weekly, depending on the author.

Just to make this clear: there is no pay for serializing your novel here, so I can understand someone not wanting to do it. A good novel on the site would be great for increasing readership and awareness, and thereby building the community, which is the main goal of Kunlun Journal. So basically, publishing your novel here will be doing the journal a favor, and publishing here will only help develop the community. If you have a serial going elsewhere that is relevant to this community, then please let me know and I will be happy to direct readers there so they can read it.

If you would like to submit your novel, or idea for a novel, please email me at [email protected]. Include in your email a short synopsis of a novel, and any outline you may have. If you don't have an outline, then tell me what your story is about and where it will go, what you have planned for it. Submissions for novel serialization are open indefinitely. Only original works will be considered, so no fan fiction please.

[PJ]

John: Great undertaking and good luck with this project.

Can a moderator move this to the Wuxia Fiction forum to get more attention? There might be others like me who spend most of my time in the Wuxia forum and don't visit other forums much, and thus will miss this thread.

[whiteskwirl]

John: Great undertaking and good luck with this project.

Can a moderator move this to the Wuxia Fiction forum to get more attention? There might be others like me who spend most of my time in the Wuxia forum and don't visit other forums much, and thus will miss this thread.

Thanks PJ! I didn't know which forum this thread should go in, so I picked "Academia" because it was related to literature. If I should post further updates in the Wuxia Fiction forum, then I will.

Also, UPDATE: Kunlun Journal is now accepting submissions for Issue 2. The first issue will be released this April. Submission guidelines are here: http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/p/submit.html

[whiteskwirl]

UPDATE: Release date set for the first issue, plus a look at the cover: http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/20...rst-issue.html

[whiteskwirl]

Update: The first issue of Kunlun Journal has been released. You can get it here: http://kunlunjournal.blogspot.com/20...sue-1-now.html