Dark Valentine Magazine, a quarterly webzine first published in June 2010, will close its digital doors as of June 3, 2011 when the anniversary issue is uploaded to their site. The last issue, a collection of 15 stories in a variety of genres, is available for free download here: http://darkvalentine.net/

“We wanted to go out on a high note,” says publisher Katherine Tomlinson, “and this issue is just a knockout from its amazing cover to the fiction and art inside.”

Conceived by Tomlinson; editor/design director Joy Sillesen, and art director Joanne Renaud, the magazine featured original dark fiction and original art commissioned to illustrate the stories with contributors drawn from across the globe.

“We were stunned by the sheer number of great stories that writers sent us,” says Tomlinson, who credits the writer’s market site ralan.com for spreading the word about the publication. “The minute we were featured on ralan, we started getting ten to 15 submissions a day; and those were quality submissions. We could have filled a double issue every month and still have had stories left over.

“We had contributors in their teens—artist Natasha Killeen was only 18 when we ran her first illustration—and writers in their 8th decade,” she adds, “which was very exciting.”

The anniversary issue, featuring a steampunk graphic cover by artist Jordan Boos is available for free download until Sunday on the magazine’s website: http://darkvalentine.net/

After Sunday, the magazine can be downloaded from editor Joy Sillesen’s Stony Hill Productions site: http://www.stonyhillproductions.com/dark-valentine-archive/ All five issues of the magazine will be available there. “Since I was editor of DV and responsible for its design and layout, we figured this was probably the best place to make it accessible,” says Sillesen.

The publisher plans to make a print copy of the anniversary issue available for sale some time later this summer, most likely in a trade paperback-size edition.