Slushpile is publishing trade jargon referring to the pile(s) of unsolicited submissions to a periodical. 1632 series main author Eric Flint encouraged fans to contribute to the series, several short stories were published in the online magazine The Grantville Gazettes. In the "continuing adventure" of the Grantville Gazettes, according to Flint, the unsolicited stories began shaping the background thought in the series milieu, and the magazine "idea" was born whilst he tried to recoup some of the time costs involved in examining the fan fiction. Also, he judged some of the tales to be professional quality, and indeed, incorporated many of them into about half of Ring of Fire. The flagship novel was written as a stand-alone literary work, an experiment with the new Assiti Shards story prem