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Featuring fifteen stories filled with dark desires, selfish needs and compelling urges, the spring issue of Dark Valentine caps the magazine’s first year of publication with contributors from as far away as Poland.

“It’s been a fantastic year for the magazine,” says publisher Katherine Tomlinson. “We have been thrilled with the quality of the stories coming our way. In fact, a piece of flash fiction from our inaugural issue, Carol Kilgore’s “Blues in the Night,” has been short-listed for a Derringer Award, competing against stories from long-established print magazines like Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.”

Tomlinson praises editor/design director Joy Sillesen for giving the publication its unique look. “Joy does double duty every issue. In addition to being a terrific editor, she has an artist’s eye for layout and is the queen of fonts. From the very first issue, her work made the magazine memorable.”

As always, each of the stories is accompanied by original artwork commissioned just for that piece. “Our art director, Joanne Renaud, has collected a terrific group of artists whose styles vary from the other-worldly richness of Kitamu Latham-Sampier’s illustration for ‘Swamp’ to the noir-ish black and white stylings of Walter Conley,” Tomlinson continues. As with the stories, the art was gathered from all over the world, with artists from the UK, Greece, Poland, and Australia as well as North America.

“Yes,” Tomlinson adds. “We are after total domination of all genres of dark fiction.”

Dark Valentine is a quarterly magazine dedicated to dark fiction from every genre.

Coming in June—Dark Valentine Magazine’s anniversary issue which will be available in pdf, electronic formats, and print.

“If you like what you saw last year,” Tomlinson says, “you’re going to love what you see this year.”

Find the Spring issue of Dark Valentine at: http://darkvalentine.net/index.php/2011/03/rites-of-spring/

Contact: publisher@darkvalentine.net