I'm Off To See The Wizard

Well, I'm packing and getting myself ready to leave for Atanta and DragonCon this afternoon.

I'm making headway on the pile of stories for IGMS, learning a lot in the process. I've winnowed the last year's worth of submissions down to a final 40 (not counting the 8 or 10 I've already accepted) and have to decide how many more I want to accept. I don't think I'll take more than about 15 or so, otherwise it would take me a year or more to get them all published. After waiting so long for some of these stories to be read, I don't want to ask authors to wait another year to be published. I don't think that's fair.

And although I'm nearly caught up on my pile, the asst. editor still has over 300 more stories sitting on her computer, so the work is far from over. In fact, maybe it's time to ask for a raise.

The artwork for issue three is starting to trickle in. We're now announcing that the issue will be ready by late September. I think we've got some great stories, stories that people will enjoy reading. And that had been my goal all along - bringing people stories that are a pleasure to read. Fun and funny; cool and thought-provoking; stories that are about something. I think that's what people want, and I think that's something that, to be blunt, has been missing from a lot of short fiction that's been published lately. Literary 'artistry' be damned, I just want someone to tell me a good story.

I'll be back from DragonCon on 9/5/06. See you then.