rum·ble (rum´bal)
1 to make a deep, heavy, continuous, rolling sound, as thunder
2 a widespread expression of discontent or restiveness
3 [slang] a fight between gangs, esp. of teenagers
4 A [kickass] web magazine devoted to micro fiction. Totally kicks ass
Rumble Magazine was born in the summer of 2004 with the help of a few friends of mine from The New Absurdist website. I was intrigued by the ultra short form I was reading there and had begun to write some of my own. The idea was to create a web magazine featuring stories of 500 words or less.
“We want the best writing that no money can buy,” I said. “We won’t take just anything.”
After some initial web design hiccups Rumble was born as a small electronic monthly. 4 years and many issues later, Rumble is still here and continues to publish some of the best micro fiction on the web.
A lot has changed since then.
At that time we were aware of only 2 or 3 web magazines talking about or publishing ultra short, shorter than flash fiction length (1000 word) stories. Now there are many. The term “micro fiction” has become very popular. We are one of the originals, and we hope, one of the best.
We got poetry too.
Rumble started out as a monthly publication but has become an occasional magazine. What does this mean? Basically we will publish new content every few weeks, depending on the quality of submissions. This schedule ensures that if we don’t have anything worth publishing, we won’t publish. As a writer, you may submit something, have it accepted, and find it appears almost immediately. But sometimes publication may take up to two months.
One resource for information on micro fiction is our The Micro Fiction mini site. Basically micro fiction is flashier flash fiction, a shorter short short.
We are obsessed with presenting web fiction in the best possible light, design wise. We are talking about TYPOGRAPHY. The right fonts, line-spacing, white-space, and so on. We pay attention to the details like no other web magazine. For example, at Rumble you will see actual paretheses ( “ ” ). Why bother with details like this? Because good writing is worth formatting correctly, in our opinion.
Rumble also takes advantage of CSS to present multiple skins for our readers. Click on the links at the top right of the page to check out this feature, and choose the style that’s most appealing to you.
Well that’s about it for now. To all the writers who’ve submitted, many thanks. You’ve helped make this a quality publication and we’re grateful. Thanks also those who have linked to us, and with whom we’ve exchanged links.
Craig Snyder, Rumble Editor