Since its first issue in June 2009, Filament’s readership, distribution and advertising has grown steadily. More people are reading Filament than ever before and according to our recent readership survey, you think it’s getting more awesome.

It may seem strange against this backdrop, that I am announcing that Issue 9, the next issue of Filament, due out 1 December 2011, will be the last. My reasons are entirely personal. Perhaps this is also the right time, because we are finishing on a high.

To answer some questions you may have:

• I’m a subscriber. Will I receive my money back for the issues I haven’t received? Yes. However, this is labour-intensive for us, with over 1000 subscriptions to individually refund. We aim to complete this process by 30 June 2012. If you don’t want to be refunded, please email hello@filamentmagazine.com and let us know.
• Will Filament continue as a website? Not as such, but we plan to try and put most of our past content up on www.filamentmagazine.com and will add articles as exciting and relevant topics come up, so please keep following our feeds. We will also continue to sell issues through the website until they run out. Our stockists will also be getting in Issue 9 as normal, and will continue to sell Filament until they run out.
• Couldn’t someone else take over as editor of Filament? It’s doubtful, for various reasons that I can’t go into.
• Perhaps a company would want to buy the magazine? We have had offers, but always from those who seek to turn Filament into something that doesn’t seem consistent with the reasons you have told us that you like Filament.

I know that Filament means a lot to many of you. At various events I’ve had readers approach me to thank me, with tears in their eyes. This makes me feel proud, but also incredibly sorry that I can’t continue this for you.

This is not the end of the ideas behind Filament. Increasing numbers of projects that count Filament as an inspiration seem to be appearing, Andro Aperture, The Badlands Burlesque, Men of the Stacks and The Naked Muse to name but a few. There are others in the planning stages. So perhaps this isn’t the end, but the beginning.

Thank you for making Filament such a wonderful thing.

Suraya
Editor
Filament Magazine

PS. If you want to make sure you get a copy of the final issue, pre-order it now.
PPS. If you’re a subscriber and you’ve moved house since our last issue in June, please email us your new address. Even if you’re getting your mail redirected, stuff gets missed sometimes.

Overall winner
Extended vocal techniques by Toby Carlisle – wins £100 cash

Runners up
The siren on the shore by Victoria Kurylak – wins £50 cash
On the road by Elle Fox – wins £50 cash

Highly commended
The cellist by Tracy Tidswell
Getting heavy by Emmy van Ewyk

The winner and runners up will be published in Issue 9 – The Music Issue – now available for pre-order.

We’re also sharing one of our runner-up stories with you in full, for free – On the road by Elle Fox.

Thanks to all those who entered for sharing their wonderful work with us. Please keep writing and keep submitting.

The calendar was born as an idea, one cold January night while watching over my three-year-old son as he slept. He had been diagnosed with Type One diabetes aged two. As I spent another sleepless night hourly monitoring his blood sugar levels, I decided I wanted to do something to raise awareness about this life-threatening disease and to raise funds for research into a cure.

Photography Naomi Woddis

I avoid all competitive or challenging sports, but I am good at bringing people together to get creative. I decided I would use my skills and connections as a poet and independent publisher to do exactly that. With a goal of raising £10,000 and getting 10,000 people talking about diabetes (10,000 is the number of times my son will be pricked with a needle each year) I began brainstorming.

Photography Annabel Williams

‘My husband’s joking suggestion that I make a calendar of beautiful naked male poets started my brain whirring. Okay, I thought, we might have something a bit different here.’

My husband’s joking suggestion that I make a calendar of beautiful naked male poets started my brain whirring. Okay, I thought, we might have something a bit different here. What if I could bring together male poets, female photographers and poetry by female poets, in a creative collaboration that would explore and celebrate the role of the muse?

Photography Tamara Peel

‘The images started arriving and we began to see something beautiful and exciting, a celebration not only of male beauty, but also of female creativity.’

It took more than eight months to bring 41 artists together, and two months of madness to bring the creative vision into a reality. By early September, the images started arriving and we began to see something beautiful and exciting, a celebration not only of male beauty, but also of female creativity: collaboration, community and positive creative action to make a difference and bring about change.

All profits from the calendar, which is on sale now, will go to charities working to support diabetes research, including the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Order The naked muse 2012 calendar from www.wildwomenpress.com for a special price of £12.99 (includes worldwide shipping) until 13 November, thereafter £14.99 including worldwide shipping.

Photography - Ricardo Louis http://ricardolouis.com

It all started a few years ago when two of my colleagues and I learnt of another library-themed calendar, The tattooed ladies of the Texas library association. We shared the same reaction – ‘Cool, but… what about us? Where are all the men?’ We also felt that that calendar reinforced the stereotype of librarians as people who wear glasses, shelve according to the Dewey Decimal System and are exclusively female.

‘Three of us decided to make our own calendar that represented the professional and personal interests of male librarians around the country.’

Three of us decided to make our own calendar that represented the professional and personal interests of male librarians around the country.

It wasn’t going to be quite that simple, though. Although the matter has now been resolved, one model was confronted by his human resources manager and threatened with legal action for appearing in the calendar. Then, the trustees of a fund we’d selected to donate the proceeds to – a library fund supporting intellectual freedom and opposing censorship – told us they would not adopt or endorse The men of the stacks fundraiser. We’ve now decided to support a different organisation, It gets better, an organisation that supports GLBT young people and shows them that love and happiness can be a reality in their future.

Our project has two goals: to help alter the perception of professional librarians and do some good for the world. So, who are we? We are educators, programmers, project managers, entrepreneurs, contractors, consultants and speakers. We are academics. We are authors, historians, deans, professors and researchers. We are creatives. We are musicians, bakers, painters and storytellers. We are yogis, gym-rats, runners and hikers. We are dog-lovers, radicals, conservatives, Christians and Buddhists. We are in our twenties. We are in our forties. We try to use our advantages to better the lives of others. We are The men of the stacks.

The men of the stacks 2012 calendar is available at menofthestacks.com for $US19.95 + shipping. You can also email info@menofthestacks.com for more information.

As part of our mission to make Filament better every time, we’re asking our readers thoughts on our latest issue – Issue 8 – The WET issue. If you bought it, subscribed, borrowed a copy or just had a flick-through, we’d very much appreciate it if you gave us 5—10 minutes to tell us what you thought. If you haven’t yet had a chance to get Issue 8, be sure to grab one here.

Take the survey

Survey participants will be entered in a draw to win a book! Here’s what we’ve got to give away this time:

Sex secrets of the Kama Sutra and other eastern pleasures, by Kayla Ricci
RRP £14.99
‘I’m incredibly picky about sex manuals, and with good reason: so many are filled with made-up ‘men are from mars, women are from venus’ rubbish which one can only imagine serves to make heterosexual couples feel divided, rather than bringing them closer together. Sex secrets of the Kama Sutra on the other hand, is one of the best manuals I’ve seen for elegantly described sex ideas and techniques ranging from the basic to the elaborate. The photography is subtle but sufficiently descriptive, making it the kind of beautifully presented book that is useful, inspiring and unlikely to offend anyone who accidentally stumbles upon it.’ – Bridget

The Golden Prince, by Rebecca Dean
Edward VIII became notorious for abandoning the throne for Mrs. Simpson, but in the summer of 1911 he was a prince straight from the pages of a fairy tale. Raised by the harsh disciplinarian King George V and his unfeeling Queen Mary, he longed for the warmth that had been deprived of him. The Houghton girls’ lives were full of fun, both at their magnificent family seat Snowberry, and at the glamorous parties which punctuated their lives. When a moment of serendipity brings Edward and Lily Houghton together, the pressures of a stuffy court are replaced with the lightness that Edward has dreamt of. But a future monarch could not choose his own Queen. Could the devotion of Edward and Lily triumph against him and the impending doom of World War I?

‘I found this book to be very intriguing and romantic. Prince Edward and Lilly’s romance really pulled at my heart strings, because I know what it’s like to be in love with someone who has been deemed forbidden by your family. I highly recommend this one!’
– All things historical fiction

The 52 Seductions, by Betty Herbert
RRP £12.99
‘Betty and Herbert were a happily married couple. Happy that is apart from the sex side of their relationship. After ten years of marriage sex had become more of a monthly chore than the hot, unable-to-keep-their-hands-off-each-other lust they used to feel for each other.

So how do you get that spark back? Betty set herself and Herbert a challenge: 52 seductions throughout the next year, taking it in turns each week to seduce the other.

A witty, moving and thought provoking book about love, romance, marriage and sex. An unputdownable read.’
– Note from Lapland

Cougars, cameras & c*cks: erotica for women who love to look and lust, by Amy Adams & Mark Crane
RRP $US12.95

Amy Adams and Mark Crane are a husband and wife creative team who explore the “feminine erotic gaze.” Amy is a graphic designer and photographer. She began placing ads on Craigslist seeking models – ordinary people with no prior modeling experience. For payment she offered free prints of her work. Drawing inspiration from the stories told by Amy’s models, Amy and Mark authored this collection of erotic fiction. The stories are inspired by Amy and Mark’s experiences or those shared by Amy’s models.

‘This bundle of short, sexy stories… is not only a fun and enjoyable read. The authors offer an honest insight into how men experience being naked in front of a camera, and emphasize the growing demand for more male nudity for the female gaze.’
– Esther Gabriel of Naked men, happy women.

Pride and prejudice: hidden lusts, by Mitzi Szereto
RRP $US15.95
Imagine that Jane Austen had written the opening line of her satirical novel Pride and Prejudice this way: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a good romp and a good wife—although not necessarily from the same person or from the opposite sex.’ In Pride and prejudice: hidden lusts, the entire cast of characters from Austen’s classic is here, caught with their breeches unbuttoned and their skirts raised high in this rewrite that goes all the way – and then some! Mr. Darcy has never been more devilish and the seemingly chaste Elizabeth never more turned on.

‘If Jane Austen had drunk a great deal of absinthe and slipped out of her petticoat… Mitzi Szereto’s erotic parody of Pride and Prejudice might well be the result!’ – Susie Bright

Pleasure bound: Victorian sex rebels and the new eroticism, by Deborah Lutz
RRP $US27.95
‘For the Aesthetes and the Cannibal Club, two overlapping groups of politically radical men including Algernon Charles Swinburne, Richard Burton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris, it was all sex, all the time.

Historicising the works of these flamboyant sexual prodigies, Deborah Lutz demonstrates the ways in which such figures – along with later aficionados of rough trade such as Oscar Wilde – helped define our modern notions of sexuality. The influential writers, artists and thinkers Lutz calls ‘Victorian sex rebels’ promoted women’s rights and erotic freedom, even as they doubted religion and challenged Victorian propriety in their lives and in their art. If they saw sexual identity and gender roles as fluid and flirted with everything from flagellation to sodomy, they influenced most sexually themed art of the later 19th century.

Lutz’s highly readable account of (male) sexuality during the 1860s in London details the outre sexual escapades of a self-mythologising, self-indulgent male subculture. (It was no coincidence that the 1860s also witnessed stirrings of feminism.) To guard against presentism, she follows an informal historical chronology, structured around themes such as erotic melancholia, aestheticised death and erotic faith.’ – Times Higher Education

The ghost of Neil Diamond, by David Milnes
RRP £7.49
‘The Ghost of Neil Diamond is a rare find, a totally original and fascinating novel that held my interest from beginning to end. The novel is a dark comedy that follows the exploits of Neil Atherton, a Neil Diamond impersonator struggling to make a name for himself in Hong Kong.

Indeed, this well-crafted novel captured my attention from the first paragraph: “With a few splashes of cold water Neil washed away his sins. He watched them slip down the plugholes, one by wretched one. The wrongdoings and wrong turns, the bad debts and bad memories sank beyond the U-bend, and his soul lay empty and prepared.” Well I could go on and on but the bottom line is that I highly recommend The Ghost of Neil Diamond if you’re tired of reading the same old shit all the time and want to check out something truly unique. I for one am looking forward to David Milnes’ next novel!’ – Alternative Reel

The secret history of rock ‘n’ roll, by Christopher Knowles
RRP $US16.95
Sex. Drugs. Loud music. Wild costumes. Dazzling light shows. These sights and sounds all describe a great rock concert or a hot dance club; but they were also part and parcel of the ancient cultural phenomenon known as the ‘Mystery religions’, whose rites often made Lollapalooza look like a church picnic.

The secret history of rock ‘n’ roll picks up where other rock histories leave off. It tells the story of the Mysteries — their rise, fall, and eventual rebirth in the New World, where rhythms and melodies from the West African and the Celtic diasporas collided with the sound of popular music forever. You’ll meet history’s first pop divas, headbangers and guitar heroes, and learn the true story of the Puritan Woodstock.

A rock opera of Dionysian proportions craned up against the backbeat of human consciousness. A joyful paean to the gods of rock ‘n’ roll.’ —Lon Milo DuQuette, magician-musician, author of The Magick of Aleister Crowley

Take the survey

The survey will remain open until Friday, 2nd September 2011.

[[Show as slideshow]]
Photography by Hannah Thomas (electric guitar and accordion), Migle Backovaite (Clarinet), Lisolette Gilcrest (Piano) and Dianora Niccolini (Cello).

Filament is delighted to announce a new erotic fiction competition, sponsored by the delicious website For The Girls and judged by their esteemed editor and proponent of all things erotic for women, Ms Naughty.

1st prize = £100 and publication in Filament magazine Issue 9
Two runners up = £50 each and publication in Filament magazine Issue 9

How to enter

1. Get a copy of Issue 8 to read the stories that won our most recent contest.
2. Read our fiction guidelines.
3. Write a fantastic, filthy, luscious, delightful piece of fiction that meets our guidelines and suggest the theme music.
4. Send your entry in the body of an email (not as an attachment) to fiction@filamentmagazine.com by 31 July 2011, 5pm GMT, subject line Filament fiction contest.

Terms and conditions

1. Competition is open to entrants aged 18 years or older, from anywhere in the world.
2. Prize payments will be made to the winning entrants within one month of publication.
3. Prize payments will be made in pounds sterling by PayPal. Filament may, at their discretion, attempt other means of payment if requested by the winner or runners up. Currency exchange fees and any other fees will be borne by the prize recipient.
4. Entries may not be withdrawn once submitted.
5. Competition entrants are deemed to have agreed to have their story published by Filament magazine according to Appendix 1 of the fiction guidelines if their story is selected as a winner or runner up. If their story is not selected among the winning entries, Filament will have no rights to the story, unless Filament magazine and the writer agree otherwise.
6. Entrants may submit their writing under a pseudonym, but must be willing to disclose their full legal name confidentially to Filament magazine in the event that they win, for the purposes of completing legal use documentation and making payment of winnings.
7. All entries must meet Filament magazine’s fiction guidelines. Entries that do not meet the guidelines (eg, submitted as attachments, over word count) will be disqualified.
8. Attempts to influence the judging of this competition will result in disqualification.
9. Filament magazine undertakes only to notify the winning entrants.
10. The judge’s decision is final.
11. Any questions about the competition may be directed at fiction@filamentmagazine.com.

We received over 100 entries from new and established writers all over the world. The standard was exceptionally high, so not only was there a massive amount of reading to be done, but shortlisting was difficult to say the least. We’d like to thank our sponsor LoveHoney, our fiction editor Megan for doing the lion’s share of the reading and Violet for helping us publicise the competition and undertaking the difficult task of judging the winners.

Winner:

Penny Docherty, for Storm in a Teacup (wins £100 cash)

Runners up:

• Brooke Austin, for Right when it rains (wins £50 cash)
• Olivia Glass, for Drought (wins £50 cash)

Highly commended:

• Tiffani Angus, for All’s Fair
• Valerie Alexander, for Blinded and Falling
• Cornelia Grey, for Apples and Regret and Wasted Time (since published by Storm Moon Press)

Pre-order Filament Issue 8 now to make sure you get a chance to read the three winning stories. If you’re interested in developing your fiction writing, here’s Filament’s fiction editor Megan Lewis with nine tips for writing better erotic fiction.

Our most heartfelt congratulations to the winners and to all those who entered. We look forward to receiving your future submissions. Our next erotic fiction contest is now open.