Tweet the Meat News: Twitter was down.

Hootsuite/Twitter had a bit of technical hiccup, causing John's Tweet to be published late. Hopefully it won't happen again, though Twitter going down seems to be pretty common.

Tweet the Meat author: Chef Cthulhu

Chef Cthulhu is not really a chef even though he really likes food... so all you chefs, foodies and culinary folks on Twitter PLEASE stop auto-following him! He is owner and proprietor of Cthulhu's Family Restaurant where he blogs about whatever he wants. Follow him at @Chef_Cthulhu

Meat Tweets:

5/3/09
5/29/09

Tweet the Meat News: Subs done. Crackheads suck.

We have finished up our submissions for the week. Thanks again to everyone who submitted. If you haven't heard from us by now, it means you somehow got missed. Please feel free to query.

The home where two of the Tweet the Meat editors live was burglarized and completely trashed today, which is the reason for the slight delay. Any stories that get submitted this week where crackhead thieves get brutally tortured may receive extra attention. Just sayin'.

Tweet the Meat Author: Ellen McCloud

Ellen McCloud aka @candyo121 is an aspiring horror author from West Virginia.

CandyO's Meat Tweets:

5-28-09

Tweet the Meat News: Submission Stats

Every week, we like to leave the theme slightly generic and open to allow a broad interpretation. Whenever I see the term "Critters" I always think of that 1986 movie, and by default I think of any sort of small creature with gobs of teeth and legs. You guys overwhelmingly interpreted the theme as "bugs." At least 60% of the critter-themed submissions were bug-centric. And that's okay. Bugs freak us out.

Subs were down a bit this week, but the quality bar was higher than ever. We are about halfway through the submissions. Everyone should have a response by the end of tomorrow.

Total Subs: 88

Number of stories involving bugs coming from orifices: 13
Number of stories involving bugs going into orifices: 5
Number of stories about the editor's mother: 1
Number of 419 scam emails received during submission period: 25


Next week: No theme.

Tweet the Meat Author: Karen L. Newman

Karen L. Newman lives in Kentucky where she's an active member of the Horror Writers Association and edits Illumen and Afterburn SF.

Over two hundred and fifty of her short stories and poems have been published both online and in print in places such as Star*Line, Dreams and Nightmares, and Raven Electrick. Her poetry collections include EEKU (Sam’s Dot, 2005), ChemICKals (Naked Snake Press, 2007), and Toward Absolute Zero (Sam’s Dot, 2009). She won the 2005 Kentucky Mary Jane Barnes Award and two of her poems received honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She's been nominated for a Rhysling Award and twice nominated for a Dwarf Star Award. Please visit her online at http://home.zoomnet.net/~karennew.

Karen's Meat Tweets:
5-21-09

Tweet the Meat News: Submissions Done

We are done with this week's submissions. If you haven't heard from us one way or another, please feel free to query.

Tweet the Meat News: Submission Stats

One of the best things about the small space/prompt combination is you'll see several extremely similar stories that are also crafted in very different ways. We anticipated lower participation this week due to a tough theme, but we were wrong. Many people took to the challenge in surprising ways.

A couple people didn't get auto-responses this week, which was the result of human error on our end. If you sent two submissions, no worries.

Total Submissions: 125

Number of consumed brains: 22

Zombie-themed stories: 13

Murdered kittens: 2

The majority of our responses most likely won't go out until later today and tomorrow, both good and bad. Thanks for your continued support and patience.

We also really appreciate all the re-tweets and @tweetthemeat replies. We don't get the chance to respond to many, but we read them all.

In a couple weeks we're going (hoping) to start taking submissions for artwork that will be the background image for themed weeks. More info on that when it comes time.

Next week's theme: Critters.

Tweet the Meat Author: Denise Danks

Denise Danks is a screenwriter, journalist and author of the Georgina Powers series of computer crime novels and the noir thriller Torso.

Denise Danks' Meat Tweets:

5-19-09

Tweet the Meat News: Subs done

We are finally done with all the subs from the previous weekend. If you haven't heard from us, please double check your email then feel free to send us a query.

Tweet the Meat News: Submission Stats for the rip fest

As always, it was great fun to read all of your submissions. Once again, we've been overwhelmed with more good submissions than we know what to do with. If you haven't heard from us yet, that's a good thing.

If you have been rejected, we really encourage you to submit to one of the other Twitterzines. We have a list of them here. Some of these subs were too good to go unread.

We are still getting handfuls of submissions that are too long. Please, familiarize yourself with the market and Twitter before you submit. We're not rejecting your 140 word opus of gore and horror because we're "uneducated hacks" who don't know brilliance when we see it, we're rejecting it because it doesn't fit the market. (Well, maybe we are uneducated hacks, but we can still recognize when someone hasn't followed the guidelines.)

Twitter has a 140 character limit that includes spaces. If it doesn't fit, it's rejected. Period.


Stats:
*Total Submissions: 112

*Ripped-open ribcages: 8
*Insanely-angry responses to a rejection: 1
*Stories where someone rips a poster/piece of paper/something else which results in someone's flesh also being ripped: 9
*Ripped-off tattoos: 4


Next week's theme: Memories.

Note our sub guidelines have changed. Multiple subs now all go into a single email.

Tweet the Meat News: Change in Sub Guidelines

We've decided to add a slight change to our submission guidelines to make everyone's lives easier.

Effective immediately, all multiple submissions need to be placed within a single email.

That means if you're submitting one story, you'll send us one email. If you're submitting five stories, you'll still send us only one email. Please only send us one email a weekend. Thank you!

Full submission guidelines may be read here.

Tweet the Meat Author: Errid Farland

Errid owns www.ShowMeYourLits.com, a website which sponsors a weekly flash contest. Her stories have appeared in Barrelhouse, Thieves Jargon, Word Riot, storySouth, Pindledyboz, GUD, and other great places.

Errid's Meat Tweets:

5-11-09

Tweet the Meat Author: J. Matthew Zoss

Bio: J. Matthew Zoss writes stuff. He has been published in books, magazines and websites.

Meat Tweets:

5-10-09

Tweet the Meat Author: Ace Masters

Ace Masters is a Glendale, AZ-based writer and actor. http://www.theacemasters.com

Meat Tweets:

5/6/09
5/7/09

Tweet the Meat News: Submission Stats

We had a very successful weekend. The quality of your stories continues to be excellent, and we're rejecting stories not because they're bad, but because we simply don't have room. Thank you to everybody who submitted this week. If you haven't heard from us yet, you will soon.

Random Stats:

Total Submissions: 120

Number of piranha-based stories: 5
Number of drownings: lost count after 30, but probably about 40.
Number of mermaids: 8
Number of submissions for the "secret" theme: 21

In case you missed it, next week's theme is "Ripping"

Tweet the Meat Author: Kenneth Kellsborough

Kenneth Kellsborough lives in Naperville, Illinois. His ticogonderoga pencil is his typewriter, his fiancee is his editor, and the beedy, red-eyed multitude collectively form his muse--don't worry, they're here to help.

Kenneth's Meat Tweets:

5-02-09

Tweet the Meat Author: Aaron Polson

Today's Meat Tweet comes to us from Aaron Polson:

In his day job, Aaron Polson attempts to teach high school students the difference between irony and coincidence.

http://www.aaronpolson.com

Please support our authors by checking out their website.

Aaron Polson's Meat Tweets

5/01/09

Tweet the Meat News: Week One Submissions done; Today is our official opening

We are finally through all of the first week submissions. If you haven't heard from us, then we had a hiccup somewhere. Everyone who submitted should have heard from us by now.

If you know you submitted something on 25th or the 26th, and you didn't hear anything email us ASAP and we can figure out what happened. Or re-submit tomorrow.

Submissions open tonight at midnight. The theme is "Wet." The submission guidelines are here.

Also, tonight's entry will be our first official story submitted by someone else, and it will appear at 6:00 Pacific Time immediately preceded by a bio.

We had a great time reading all of your submissions last week. We look forward to reading more.