Dreamtime Guidelines

1. All contributors should be members of the PMEB. This isn't a very difficult requirement. You can join the PMEB by sending an email to: majordomo@orbit.crawford.com, with "subscribe pmeb your@addy" in the body. Put your email address in place of "your@addy". Alternately, click here and fill out the form.
2. All material should be suitable for all ages. That is, no EF (erotic fiction) or erotic art. Romance is fine, but this zine is going to be generally available and we don't want anything in it your 15-year-old brother shouldn't be seeing.
3. Fiction should be no more than 10,000-15,000 words in length. We are now considering longer works, to be serialized over several issues. However, I'd like to see the majority of stories wrap in a single reading. For formatting, please refer to my formatting guidelines.
4. Art work can be submitted as hard copy, mailed to me for scanning, or as electronic files emailed to me. If you need my address to mail me something, email me at: elsaf@pipeline.com, and I'll send it to you.
5. Multimedia presentations are encouraged. Have you written some original music that could be presented as a midi file? A filk? A story that is integrated with illustrations? We'd love to see them.
6. We're not completely focused on the Eighth Doctor here. Doctor Who fiction or artwork involving any Doctor or companion is welcome. We would also welcome fiction or artwork involving any role played by Paul McGann, not necessarily Doctor Who. However, because not all entertainment companies are as liberal about fan fiction as the BBC, we will not be accepting Star Wars or Star Trek fan fiction. There are also "themed" projects. December's theme will be "Gifts."

   A second December feature will be the "Shared World" project. This will be a group of stories set on the same world, but using characters and situations selected by the writers. If you'd like to participate, start by reading the world description. Then, email me at elsaf@pipeline.com, to get in on the shared world discussion.

7. Submitted material should be original and not published elsewhere.
8. Submitted material should not be about or include as characters any real, living people. That is, the Eighth Doctor, or any other role played by Paul McGann, is fair game. Paul McGann isn't. It would be all right to mention a real person, for example, a character could say: "But Minnesota has been such a strange place since Jesse Ventura was elected governor." (Note: Jesse Ventura is a real person [I think], but what's been said about him, i.e. that he's been elected governor, is unquestionably true. I didn't say he made Minnesota strange. Simply that it's been strange since he was elected governor.) The reasoning behind this rule is protecting Dreamtime from libel. When you use a real person as a character in a fictional story, you're saying things about that person that aren't true. Celebrities tend to scan the Net for their names. You can't be sure that what you've said about Paul McGann or Sylvester McCoy will never get back to them. So, to avoid lawsuits, I'd like to ask that if you mention a real, living person, what you say is:
   1. Unquestionably true and public knowledge; or
   2. Said with that person's express permission.
9. If you'd like to submit something, email me, Elsa Frohman, and we'll get you on the list.
10. All submissions are due by Nov. 15, 1999, with an eye to having the next issue of the zine on line by the first Monday in December.