Yeah, we spent two months thinking about it, but still couldn’t come up with a better title than that.

We know you’re busy setting pen to paper crafting devious, speculative (possibly metrical) verse for our recently unveiled Poetry Issue, but we also wanted to give you the what-for’s and how-to’s on the second of three special editions JDP will be publishing in 2013.

Simply put, we’ve always wanted to do a Lovecraft issue. But not just the standard collection of pastiches, because there are lots of other people around doing that and doing it well. So…inspired by Gaiman stories like “A Study in Emerald” and “I Cthulhu,” we’re looking for something special…a mash-up of one literary style or theme with ol’ Howard Phillips to create something new, ideally something dark and ferocious, very possibly with a healthy dose of humor. In short, write Lovecraft like Neil Gaiman!

Guidelines

1. No copyright infringement. We’d love to see Batman fist-fight Nyarlahotep as much as the next quirky lit mag, but we can’t publish characters that belong to someone else. So whatever you’re going to mash-up with Lovecraft, make sure that either a) you created it or b) it’s in the public space. Related: since Neil already went to town with Sherlock Holmes and won a Hugo for his troubles, you might want to scratch that character off your list.

2. No trunk stories. Look, we love Innsmouth Free Press and things like the Cthulhurotica anthologies by Dagan Books, but if they’ve already rejected you, we’re probably not interested. (Unless they said, “Wow, this is something like Neil Gaiman would write!” But they probably would’ve accepted it if that was the case.) Bottom line: conjure something fresh from depths of outer space for us. We want a new indescribable color not the same old ones. (Heh, get it, “Old ones?”)

3. Neil Gaiman is not allowed to enter. That just doesn’t seem fair and possibly could create some universe-ripping paradox. (So get to work on the script for Stardust 2, pretty boy.)

4. Read back issues of JDP. It’s generally sound advice in and of itself, but it’ll also give you an idea of the stuff we like to publish.

5. Though with time we’ve grown to love and respect flash as an art form, we’re going to pass on it for this issue only. We’re looking for solid short stories, a tale of 3,000 to 7.000 words. The best three to five will make the final issue, to be published in July.

6. Deadline for submissions is May 1st at approximately 11:47 pm, East Coast time, give or take fifteen minutes. But, seriously, don’t cut it that close.

7. Submit your story here and good luck.

Finally, if this proves to be a success, we will consider a special issue devoted to “Write a Duran Duran Biography Like Neil Gaiman.”