I came across the staff of Reaktor during Worldcon 75, in Helsinki and I took the opportunity to ask them a few quick questions. The main goals of this web-based fanzine are to publish young writer’s short stories and to expand their reader’s knowledge of native and international SF literature and events.
FTB: When was Reaktor founded?
Reaktor: Reaktor was founded by Maniakkide Tänav and J.J. Metsavana in 2011 just after they had visited Ulmeguru (famous Estonian critic) in Saaremaa. The main reason for founding it was given by it’s own competitor Algernon, (Estonian first web-based fanzine, founded in 1998) who rejected the stories of Tänav and Metsavana. Reaktor aimed for more visual graphics, comics, a cover picture, illustrations and more variety in article topics: anything connected to science fiction, fantasy, or supernatural horror (in Estonian for short: ulme – yeah, we do have a word to connect them all): PC games, movies, art, board grole-playinglaying games, SF literature and events.
FTB: Tell us about the most exciting moment or moments in the history of Reaktor.
R: Uuh, there have been so many of them. In October of 2015 we published a rather negative article about a local esoteric magazine. For 4 months after that we received orders for that magazine on the regular – about 20 in total. Finally, fed up with coming up with another witty answer, we put a paragraph in bold text right before the article which explained what’s what.
FTB: Any interesting/quirky facts you want to share?
R: We have nobody educated in literature in our staff. However, among the others we have a blind IT-teacher, a blacksmith/chimneysweep and a member of a local militia/punk-rocker/firefighter.
And despite the crew’s efforts Reaktor has been getting published for almost for 6 years now, every month. We have also managed to get 3 anthologies published, filled with our authors stories.
FTB: A call to our readers if they want to submit to you.
R: Basically, if you have a dream of getting some form of your SF-writing translated, published and read in a language you most likely don’t speak, won’t learn to speak, or had actually never heard of till now, then give us a call. Or an email, that’ll work better in most cases.
You heard it, folks! You can submit to Reaktor through their official website!
