Maybe Quarterly Submission Guidelines

By Kent Daniel Bentkowski

The process of putting together the first-ever issue of the ‘Maybe Quarterly: Journal of 21st Century Illuminism’ in a very short eight weeks was a learning experience for everyone involved. It was also invigorating and exhilarating! Having the intent of publishing during the two biannual equinoxes and solstices, we had only two-thirds of the usual production lead-time, if we were to meet our deadline of the winter solstice on December 21, 2004. While I am very happy to have played a part in this already-successful endeavor, I would like at this time to provide all potential writers, graphic artists, and multimedia content producers with a set of guidelines that will help to streamline and unify the submission process.

So, here we go . . .

Note Before We Begin:

Before anyone who might wish to contribute to the Maybe Quarterly; an essay, photos, artwork, poetry, interviews, multimedia content, magickal instruction, music, a short story, or an important news story of concern to members of Maybe Logic Academy, please review this entire document before sending anything in to the Editor.

Until further notice, the e-mail address of the Editor is as follows:

kentroversey - (at) - adelphia.net

Note: The e-mail address above is presented as a graphic to avoid the snatching of my e-mail address by the various web spiders, who roam from website to website, collecting addresses they can later harvest for the junk e-mail known as spam.

Table of Contents

[1] Maybe Quarterly Mission Statement

[2] A Word About Worldwide Copyrights

[3] Submission Categories

[4] Submission Formatting (Text Documents)

[5] Submission Formatting (Graphic Art)

[6] Submission Formatting (Multimedia)

[7] Submission Formatting (Text Documents)

[8] Submission Formatting (Text Documents)

[1] Maybe Quarterly Mission Statement

The Maybe Quarterly represents an online publication led by the members of Maybe Logic Academy, with publication scheduled four times per year. This publication intends to present groundbreaking multimedia content produced by Academy members and based upon  the Academy's courses and the principles of Maybe Logic. Maybe Logic attempts a neurolinguistic approach to the most urgent problems facing humankind; emphasizing the fallibility and relativity of perception and an approach to problems and new information  with questions, probabilities, and multiple perspectives. 

[2] A Word About Worldwide Copyrights

The Maybe Quarterly, being a serious publication, will honor all legally registered copyrights of the registered owner(s) of any work. While putting together the debut issue, I was contacted by a student who had done a video to a Captain Beefheart song. In order for that video to be legally cleared for publication, the artist who did the video would have to personally secure all legal clearances prior to submission. Because I do not have the time to do this personally, the individual would have to secure such clearances on their own time and at their own expense.

Additionally, all articles and other forms of media published in the Maybe Quarterly will remain the property of the author, just as is standard policy on the Maybe Logic Academy website. As a courtesy, I would ask that anyone who publishes an MQ piece in a second publication, that the author place the following notice at the bottom of the article, immediately below the standard copyright notice:

NOTE: This essay originally appeared in the Maybe Quarterly, a publication of Maybe Logic Academy: http://www.maybelogic.org/maybequarterly/sample-article.htm.

The standard copyright notice is as follows, and it should be placed at the bottom of every article submitted. In the event that what you are submitting is a graphic or a MP3 file, then please insert this notice into the body of the e-mail when submitting the MP3 file to the Editor:

© 2005 Author’s Name

All rights reserved. Used with permission.

[3] Submission Categories

Here are all of the following categories for which we are actively seeking submissions, along with an explanation of the individual requirements for each category:

• Artwork – Please scan at the original size, and at the full 24-bit or 32-bit resolution of which your scanner is capable. However, please limit the file size per piece to 10 MB, otherwise you may have some difficulty sending it through your own mailbox. I have unlimited bandwidth available, but yours is likely limited in some manner which would prevent you from sending files larger than the size indicated above. 

• Book Excerpts – There will only be two types of book excerpts accepted by the Maybe Quarterly. The first would be an excerpt of a book you personally wrote. This was done by Zen Punkist for the first issue --- when her own HOLeY BIBLE was excerpted. The second type of book excerpt that is also acceptable is one that has either no copyright or an expired copyright. Again, in the first issue, I provided an excerpt to a 1933 book that was privately printed and distributed.

• Essays – The length of any particular essay is going to be determined by the complexity of the subject matter more than it will be by the arbitrary limits of space, as is the case with print publications. Because the Maybe Quarterly will exist primarily on the Internet, happily, space is not much of an issue.

However, here are some guidelines for you to consider; a short article is between 500-1000 words, a medium length article is 2,500 words, and a long article or book excerpt can be 5,000 to 10,000 or more words in length.

• Interviews – Obviously, here we are talking about interviews with individuals that would be of interest to the students, faculty, and visitors of Maybe Logic Academy. All interview assignments should be first cleared with the editor, and there is a very good reason for this. The process of conducting a proper interview requires research, and because it is of utmost importance to build a positive reputation for this publication, I would not want to see the interviewee’s time wasted in any way.

Because the interviewer is only going to get one shot with the individual being interviewed, there has to be a certain amount of intelligence in the drawing up of the questions to be asked.

Additionally, the individual who is conducting the interview will be responsible for both recording the interview and the preparation of the interview transcript. Think and be creative about your selection process --- while it might not offer much enlightenment to interview someone who has been featured countless times in the media --- it would be of tremendous interest if someone could arrange an interview with an individual who rarely gives them. Along those lines, I am currently working on an exclusive interview with Jimmy Page, on the subject of magick and Aleister Crowley. Since Mr. Page rarely consents to interviews, this would be of high importance to our fledgling publication.

Lastly, please keep in mind that you are representing both the Maybe Quarterly and the Maybe Logic Academy, and as such, please remain professional in all of your contacts representing this publication.  

• Magick – Here, the subject matter could be a ritual instruction, a commentary on an existing ritual or magickal operation, or even a book review of a book about magick. This is one area that will have to be assigned based upon the individual’s knowledge and own experience. It would not serve the Maybe Quarterly or its readers to have a neophyte write an article concerning the XI?< OTO.

• Music MP3’s – Because of legal problems, any MP3 files posted to the Maybe Quarterly website are going to have to be original compositions ONLY. While anyone could submit what is known as a ‘cover song,’ which is simply their own version of a well-known song, the MQ cannot host music files by anyone in the established music business without their permission.

Some other ideas for MP3 files could be a pronunciation guide to the many magickal words and names --- for instance, what is the correct pronunciation of Ra-Hoor-Khuit? What are the proper pronunciations of the Enochian angelic language? This is an idea that I have had for quite a while now, and it is my hope that we can put something together like this in the future.

Still another idea would be to audio record an entire ritual, or even video record an entire ritual for the use of beginning students of magick. This would be entirely unique, and it is something I have not seen on any other website dedicated to magick.

• Moving Pictures – Here we are talking about video. Please understand that it is not legal to produce your own music video for some famous, pre-existing group or artist. To do this, legal clearance would be required. So, just to avoid hassles in this area, the Maybe Quarterly cannot consider publishing such a submission.

Some ideas for future submissions might include a video of an interview, which would be of interest, depending on who the individual is that is being interviewed.

• News Articles – Because the Maybe Quarterly is going to publish four times each year, to coincide with the two annual equinoxes and solstices, 99% of all potential ‘news’ would be outdated by the time of publication. However, this does not mean that a new report concerning news that would have ongoing impact or effect could not be published in the Maybe Quarterly. Something like this would have to be taken on a case-by-case basis, and talking to the editor or the Maybe Logic Academy administrators, will determine the appropriateness of your news submission.

While it would be outdated news to publish an article on the imminent passage of the USA PATRIOT ACT II --- it would be entirely appropriate to publish an analysis on the effect the law will have on the community at large.

• Photography / Graphic Art – Here, virtually any subject would be of interest to the community, and our first issue contains artwork from one Academy student in particular, who thought his melted wax graphics were of a disposable nature. However, once I examined the artwork, and sent it along to the Maybe Quarterly publisher, they loved it so much that they asked for more examples of this art that was at first considered a one-off throwaway.

Because of my own 23 years of experience with commercial printing and graphic art and design, I immediately recognized the value in the artwork discussed above, even if the artist himself did not.

Here, the future submissions of graphic art and/or photography should be limited only by the imagination of the artist or photographer.

• Poetry – The only criteria is the poetry must be relative to matters studied here at the Academy. A perfect example of this is my own poem entitled ‘Wu-Wei: Esoterica Non Exoterica’ [to be published in the MQ # 02 on March 21, 2005] which in its’ eight short lines and fifty-one words is deeply embedded with the core secrets of magick and as such, is a great clue in which the reader can begin their search for the secrets of the magickal initiates.

Remember, your poetry speaks for you --- and you should consider poetry that is directly related to the matters which are discussed at Maybe Logic Academy. Taking this on a case-by-case basis, I can assure you that we are looking for only the best of the best of all your poetics.

• Short Stories – The last, but certainly not the least category, is dedicated to short stories. This is where the writer can feel free to discuss matters of concern and importance to our readers. I have a backlog of about thirty short stories that I have written over the years, but, of that batch, I would only consider one worthy of publication in this venue.

In the first issue of the Maybe Quarterly, there is a short story that concerns magickal battling and warmongering. Even though this story required extensive editing and formatting, it was still acceptable it as it directly pertains to the matters of which are frequently discussed on the Academy’s message boards.

This too, will be taken on a case-by-case basis.

Use this list above as general guidelines, and not as strict instruction.  

[4] Submission Formatting (Text Documents)

If at all possible, please present your submissions in HTML format. If this cannot be done, then please submit your text documents in .DOC file format that is readable by a word processor such as Microsoft Word.

Please DO NOT indent the first line of your paragraphs, and be sure to skip one line between paragraphs, just as you see in this document. Please DO NOT add two spaces after each sentence. This, along with the paragraph matter described above, will only have to be removed before publication. This makes more work for the editor and the publisher, so please do your best to follow these instructions.

Please DO NOT submit any text files through the Maybe Logic Academy Instant-Message system! This will turn every single period, comma, and quotation mark into a question mark. This problem was noticed when the MQ # 01 short story submission was sent to the editor, and was the reason why that submission required extensive editing before publication.

When submitting text files, please use the following format for your title page:

Title of Submission
Maybe Logic Academy
Maybe Quarterly # 01 – Category
© 2004 Author’s Name 

By using the above format, all submissions will be identified correctly. In the example above, there are two pieces of information that will constantly change; the year and the issue number of the Maybe Quarterly. The category refers to the TYPE of submission; which is as indicated by the category listing above.

If there are any pieces of artwork that need to accompany your text submission, please add them as attachments to the e-mail in which the text file is also attached. In this e-mail please indicate in clear language where precisely the accompanying artwork is to be inserted.

Additionally, the format for the Subject Line of the e-mail is as follows:

MQ # 02 Submission = Category

This will be required so the e-mail filtering will work correctly.

[5] Submission Formatting (Graphic Art)

Because graphics contain no text, all of the accompanying textual information will have to be inserted into the e-mail in which the graphic art will be inserted.

As above, the following information that will identify the graphic piece will have to be inserted into the e-mail. If there are more than one piece of artwork attached to the e-mail, please indicate each piece separately as below:

Title of Submission
Maybe Logic Academy
Maybe Quarterly # 01 – Category
© 2004 Author’s Name 

In the first issue of the Maybe Quarterly, Nick Helwig-Larsen submitted what ended up being the cover art. This ended up being quite a striking graphic, and considering that the artist considered it to be of an inconsequential nature, it ended up showing him that there is no such thing as throwaway art.

If you are unsure of a graphics’ appropriateness, please submit it anyway. You may surprise yourself that something you thought to be unusable might actually become the cover art for the next issue of the Maybe Quarterly! 

[6] Submission Formatting (Multimedia)

Here again is a format that does not include text, and your e-mail submission should include the following information (just as above). There are copyright issues involving the publication of another parties material, and as such, only original multimedia content will be considered for the future issues of the Maybe Quarterly.

Here is the format of the information that needs to be inserted into the e-mail submission:

Title of Submission
Maybe Logic Academy
Maybe Quarterly # 01 – Category
© 2004 Author’s Name 

Some suggestions for original multimedia content might be the video of an interview, a video of a magick ritual, or the correct pronunciation of magickal words and phrases. Beyond these suggestions, please use your imagination and discretion to author and submit original content for the future issues of the Maybe Quarterly.

[7] Conclusion

Also, it would be helpful to everyone who is serious about writing, to pick up the following two books. These books will help the writer become a better writer, and they should be part of every serious writers reference library:

The Elements of Style (4th edition)

by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

105 pages / $6.95 USA$

ISBN # 0-205-30902-X

The Elements of Style is a small handbook dedicated to the mistakes that occur most often in writing. If you visit the Amazon.com link below, you will be able to look inside the actual book to examine the subjects covered within its’ pages: Elements of Style link

The second book is dedicated to the proper formatting of research-style papers, and long-form dissertations. This book should be a part of the reference library of every serious writer:

MLA Style Manual and Guide To Scholarly Publishing (2nd edition)

by Joseph Gibaldi: MLA Style Manual link

Here, the paperback edition is actually more expensive than the hardback edition. While this second book may not be entirely appropriate for everyone’s reference, the inner-pages are also available to be examined on Amazon.com. 

In conclusion, these submission guidelines have been geared towards the most expeditious manner in which your writing, graphics, and multimedia can be submitted to the Maybe Quarterly. If there are any further questions about any of the guidelines, please do not hesitate to write me privately. I will look forward to working with you in the future issues of the Maybe Quarterly, which we hope to grow into an important metaphysical journal of 21st century spiritual illumination.

Kent Daniel Bentkowski

Buffalo, New York USA

March 20 , 2005 (vernal equinox)