Gender and Science Fiction/Fantasy—More Numbers

…from DMS at GeekasChicas.com.

I recently read a blog entry about gender distribution in submissions and publications that Edmund Schubert, the editor of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show (IGMS), posted on Magical Words. He quoted three emails from two assistant editors relating submission rates and then provided publication rates. He then made the claim that they publish women at the same proportion that women submit, calling the ratio “close enough.” I hear not everyone was impressed by this rigorous approach and the subsequent detailed analysis and conclusion. Rather than pick a side, I decided to look at his submission and publication numbers and see if there was a statistically significant conclusion to draw. After all, the data provided is exactly the kind of data I need for a Chi-Squared test. Isn’t it exciting!

Link to the full article.

Side-Show Arcade: Mansions of Madness

A while back, I reviewed the excellent board game, Arkham Horror.  Its sister game—Mansions of Madness—is the subject of today’s investigation.

At first glance—maybe two glances—Mansions of Madness is intimidating.  Even for someone who considers himself seasoned in board games.  There are a zillion little bits and pieces to lose; there are (I am not kidding) 13 different card stacks.  AND there are two rulebooks: one for players, and one for the guy playing against the players.  Not to mention that the game is made by Fantasy Flight, and it’s in their Arkham line—so the gameplay has a good chance of being complicated, and the night is likely destined to end in your character’s demise.

BUT—you can still have a good time with it.

Mansions of Madness dangles board-gaming closer to role-playing with a slew of pre-generated characters  and a number of unconnected scenarios to choose from.  The premise is that you are a group of investigators who have stumbled on a creepy, malign plot.  Together, you explore the board, searching for clues to untangle the mystery and fighting terrifying cultists and their otherworldly overseers.  One player (the Keeper) takes the role of all the monsters and the evil forces that control the board; all the others play characters opposing him (the Investigators).  Each group has a specific goal that they must accomplish in order to win the game, but only the Keeper knows his goal at the start.  The players only find out their ultimate goal in the final act, right before the clock strikes midnight.

Where game mechanics enhance the devastating pace of the game, Mansions of Madness is an absolute blast to play.  However, there are so many fiddly bits, and so many cards to shuffle through, and so much to take into consideration, the game can be a bit of a slog at times.  Especially at the beginning—there’s no way around it, getting the game set up is a beast.  The rules state that the players decide amongst themselves which scenario to play; *I* maintain that’s a good way to waste an hour or so of game time.   Whoever is host, SHE should decide on the game, and have it set up before everyone gets there.  The host should also be Keeper, so she can pick what storyline within the scenario she wants to play.  (Yep—each scenario is replayable because they have different story options to choose from.  So, the first time you play, you may have to find the abducted heiress in the basement; the second time you play, you find her corpse in the chapel, and then pursue her killer.)

Setup consists of deciding what scenario, and what scenario elements to play, and then setting up the board.  Mansions of Madness comes with 15 map tiles, with room details printed on both sides.  These are used to construct the board, using the scenario to determine what tiles go where.  After the board is built, characters are chosen, and the Keeper builds the deck to best help her accomplish her own goal.  Investigators are given a clue to start out with, which points them where to go; as they explore the board, the Keeper gets terror points to use against them.  Terror points allow the keeper to buy up all sorts of nasty effects, from declaring that a monster’s attack broke a character’s arm (giving that character a negative modifier on combat checks for the rest of the game), to making monsters appear out of the walls. 

The game is meant to be tense, right from the beginning; that’s how the pace is maintained.  Mansions of Madness has no low gear—it puts itself into “STARK TERROR” mode and stays there until the finish of the game.  A system of time-keeping dissuades the characters from doing anything but running from clue, to clue, to clue; although leisurely exploration is possible, the effects of not staying on task are such that it becomes deadly to dally.

Like other role-playing games, I think that much of the fun of the game exists not in the game itself, but in the way the players integrate into it.  With one group, the game is lively, and fun; with another, it gets bogged down in arguing or confusion over the rules.

I recommend the game with that caveat: know your gaming group.  The insistent rules lawyer has killed more game nights than Cthullhu has devoured planets.

-- Scott M. Roberts

This is My Corporation, Eat—Lon Prater

"This Is My Corporation, Eat" is a story which sprang into my head during a conversation online with Ken Scholes. Neither of us remember the exact context, just that it had to do with zealotry, the Rapture and our similar early aspirations to religious callings and subsequent, err, loss of fervor.

I nearly shelved this one when it was written, because I worried that it was too heretical, too much of an indictment to be stomached by a Christian population already highly sensitized to how Christians are portrayed. I worried that the end of the Christian spectrum who enjoy their martyrdom and righteous condemnation would have a distinct and rock-throwy lack of appreciation for my themes.

I wrote this story in response to zealotry and the commodification of the sacred, in the same way my story "Deadglass" (Writers of the Future XXI) was written in response to the form of religious OCD that the Catholics would recognize as scrupulosity, and my story "The Atrocities of King George" (Ideomancer, June 2010) was written in response to the rationalization and cognitive blanking-out processes that make up a "the ends justify the means" mentality. More recently, I've released a pair of short mashup/experimental novels to Kindle and nook that take on what I see as the flaws in Objectivist Selfishness (The Island of Jayne Grind, with H.G. Wells) and my rejection of the Patriot Act ethos of security trumping liberty (The American in His Season, with Mark Twain and others).

I bring all this up not to shamelessly whore my fiction out, but to lend some background to what makes me tick as a writer and reader. I take themes seriously. I read for that subtle thread, that unifying web of nerve endings that makes a story come alive, moving and wanting and hurting--not for the writer's sake, and not for the reader's sake, but for its own damned sake.

There is a difference when a story is about something; it's as significant and polarizing as the difference between lightning and lightning bug. I relish digging into the work of writers like Mark Twain and H.G. Wells--or modern masters of tone and theme like Gary Braunbeck and the aforementioned Ken Scholes. Collecting and assembling the sublimely deliberate details, those hundreds of conscious and unconscious decisions they've made in their art which add up to a whole that is something emotional, something true. . . THIS is what makes my brain feel like it's finally using that other 90% people like to talk about.

When I say true, I don't mean true in the sense of verifiable fact, but true in that deeper, human, sacred sense that may well fly in the face of every fact known to science. The sense of authenticity that resonates with one message: I believe in this, and I have to share it.

At first, the third act of this story was not authentic to its beginning. A set of conversations with a pair of gifted and spiritually adept editors (Jerry Gordon and Edmund Schubert) helped this old secularist find the authenticity that was lacking at long last. The story wasn't meant to end with a tone of fatalistic nihilism, and changes were made to make that clearer. My protagonist's choices are about his own struggle with zealotry, with how easy it is for a man to make his values into tradable commodities. He finds peace in being authentic to himself and to his new understanding of Christ's message of love and tolerance and rejection of the world (in contrast to the Fundie terrorists, who have just as corrosive a focus on the material world as the corporate ministries they blow up).

But has he merely traded one zealotry for another? This is a cautionary tale, after all, and like a great many satires, deadly serious.

I mentioned above how I read to find that sense of the story being about something that matters to the person who wrote it. I try just as hard in my writing to develop a theme that matters to me. To select details and plot events that pertain and resonate and set off the idea I am exploring. I hope that I've accomplished that in this story, though I usually feel like I've missed the mark.

In the end, it's not a verifiable thing. It's only true if you felt the same sense of 'I believe this, and I want to share it' when you read it. Regardless, whether you are a reader or a writer, I hope I've made you think more deeply about theme with this post. (I'm too unconfident to say the same about my story.)

I hope you start to look for it in all your fiction. To demand it.

I hope I've made a zealot out of you.

Lon Prater
Pensacola, Florida
Summer 2011

How Evil Am I? Oh, About 76.3% On Average…

Some more numbers neepery for you gentlefolk.  Again, these are just my numbers; the other assistant editors’ (not to mention Edmund’s) are another matter entirely. 

Here is the percentages of my rejection recommendations since February, 2010:

Month	% of Rejections
Feb-10	79.31
March, 2010	47.92
Apr-10	72.73
May-10	61.76
Jun-10	95.24
Jul-10	76.92
Aug-10	75.00
Sep-10	75.86
Oct-10	70.83
Nov-10	73.68
Dec-10	77.78
Jan-11	53.85
Feb-11	91.67
Mar-11	82.76
Apr-11	85.71
May-11	96.15
Jun-11	88.24

 

Hm… looks like I’ve hit the Terrible Twos.  (I’ve been reading slush for IGMS since August 2009, but didn’t keep track of things until the beginning of 2010.)

In a late night pique of madness, I even went through all the stories I rejected to see if I could pull a pattern from them.

For the stories that I did not finish, my main complaint seems to have been a variation of the below:

“It wasn’t interesting.”

For the stories that I *did* finish and that were rejected, the main complaint was something like this:

“The ending was unsatisfying.”

I cannot stress how important it is for a story to hit the ground running.  Generally, IGMS publishes short stories.  Stories that get through my slush pile demonstrate the author’s ability to quickly establish character, place, and conflict, and no matter if they’re rip-roaring adventure stories, or philosophical comfy mysteries, they keep my attention.  Taking ten pages to get to the conflict will get you a rejection from me.

Most stories I reject don’t last even that long, I’m afraid. 

Endings.  Oh, what can I say here, that others haven’t said?  A bad ending is worse than a boring beginning, because I’ve spent all this time being enchanted, only to be disappointed at the very last moment. 

It’s like falling in love with Angelina Jolie, and then waking up to find out she’s really Ralph Nader.  I don’t care what your proclivities or political positions are, that isn’t a happy occurrence.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

The Hanged Poet—Jeff Lyman

I was inspired by "The Square", by Margueritte Duras, a French novella from 1955.  I found it fascinating that Ms. Duras could maintain over a hundred pages of dialogue between two strangers, revealing their lives and hopes and dreams through their interaction, with very little scene or setting.  I am typically a visual writer with little dialogue, so it would be an extreme challenge to attempt the same.  My original draft failed, as it came across like two people talking in an empty room, so I added back in setting.

The actual kernal inspiration for the story was a newspaper articled entitled "The Hanged Poems of Mecca".  The newspaper was folded across the title, so I only saw the first half and misread it as The Hanged Poet. 

And yes, I feared writing the poet's poem.  Some other writers advised me to leave it implied and unspoken, like some sort of poetic Necronomicon.  I thought that would be cheating the reader.  Veritas' poem came easily, since it needed to change only him.  Theseda Ys poem did not, as it had to be universal enough to be co-opted by everybody who heard it.

--Jeff Lyman

The Trouble With Eating Clouds

Technically my collection of short stories has already been released (it’s been up on Amazon for a week or two), but I’ve been deeply involved in the redesign of the website of the company that published it, and now that the site is live, in my mind it’s official: The Trouble With Eating Clouds is ready and available and looking for a few good readers. I’m pleased with the book overall, and especially happy with the front and back covers as designed by graphic artist extraordinaire, Dawn Mitchell (www.G4GInteractive.com – thanks, Dawn!).

The reason I wanted to wait for completion of the Spotlight website (www.spotlight-publishing.com) before announcing the release of my short story collection is that although the book was/is available on Amazon.com and BN.com, if a small publisher is going to support a writer, I think the writer ought to do what he or she can to support the publisher, too. That’s why I’m suggesting that if you’re thinking about buying the book, please consider buying it at the publisher’s site. I make exactly the same money no matter where you buy it: online or if you ask your local store to order it or if you buy it from Spotlight. However, buying direct from a small publisher makes a big difference to their bottom line. Plus, Spotlight only charges 99 cents for shipping, so it will actually cost you less from them than from Amazon. Spotlight is also running a promotion throughout the month of July and they’re sending autographed copies for the price of regular ones (they usually charge more for autographed copies), so if the deposit of .043 micrograms on ink in the shape of my name has any appeal to you, this is your big chance.

I talked last week about the networking that was involved in the book coming to publication (the networking that was involved in all of my books’ publications), so what I’d like to talk about today is the process by which the stories were selected. The Trouble With Eating Clouds only includes about half of the short stories I’ve had published over the past seven years, so what was the logic (stop giggling David, even I use logic every now and then…) behind what was included and what was not?

There were several thoughts running through my mind while putting this book together, but there were two main ones. First, I wanted this book to be a little more reader/family friendly than my novel was. I don’t use graphic images/scenes, violence, or coarse language casually, but the story in Dreaming Creek required a certain amount of all of that, and if it ever gets made into a movie, it will definitely be an R-rated movie. So all of the stories in The Trouble With Eating Clouds had to be the kind that didn’t require any parental oversight or screening (not that this is a children’s book, by any means).

Secondly, I really wanted this collection to represent the fun it’s possible to have when writing. When I’m at my very best, when I’m writing a story for no other reason that something has grabbed my mind’s attention and wants to come spilling out of my fingers and onto the page, the entire process is a pleasure. But when I’m writing to someone else’s theme, or someone else’s idea of what constitutes “good” fiction, it becomes a ponderous process that’s about as much fun as dragging a wooly mammoth up from the bottom of one of Le Brea’s infamous tar pits. That doesn’t mean the fun stories are easy to write—far from it, most of the time—but even when it’s challenging, there are some stories that are just a pleasure to write. Those are the stories I wanted in this book.

The stories are also arranged in chronological order (as best I could recall) according to when the were written. Years ago I read a collection of short stories by Ursula LeGuin where she talked about “arranging them in the order in which they were written, so that the development of the artist becomes part of the interest in the book.” Or at least words to that effect, the exact quote is in my book (and hers). The term ‘artist’ is never one I’ve been comfortable applying to myself, so call me whatever you like, but I do think there’s something to be said for being able to watch a writer grow and develop over the course of many years and many stories.

In the interest of full disclosure since this is a site devoted largely to writing fantasy, most of these stories read more like an episode of the Twilight Zone than The Lord of the Rings. It’s what I grew up loving, so it’s a lot of what I ended up writing. There are also a few Alfred Hitchcock-type mysteries, a historical piece set in Africa in the 1930’s that I’ve always been proud of, and all of the Dedd & Gohn paranormal-investigator comics I did with my friend Tom Barker before he had to quit the project. Those are a lot of fun to have all in one place, but then that’s one of the central themes of the book—have fun!—so it wouldn’t have been in the book otherwise. It’s even got an introduction by one of my bestest buds in the business, Alethea Kontis. She knows way too much about me personally and she spilled 90% of it in her intro (I paid good money to keep the other 10% out).

So there it is: The Trouble With Eating Clouds: A Collection of Mysteries, Magic, and Madness in all of its glory. Well, not all of its glory, but as much glory as I could cram into a single blog post. So remember, you can order it on Amazon and B&N, but supporting Spotlight is better for the little guy and cheaper for you.

IGMS Award Anthology TOC

For your consideration, the table of contents for the upcoming IGMS Award anthology:

“Trinity County, CA” by Peter S. Beagle

First appeared in IGMS issue #18

 

“Sister Jasmine Brings the Pain” by Von Carr

First appeared in IGMS issue #17

 

“The Ghost of a Girl Who Never Lived” by Keffy R. M. Kehrli

First appeared in IGMS issue #19

 

“The American” by Bruce Worden

First appeared in IGMS issue #20

 

“Silent as Dust” by James Maxey

First appeared in IGMS issue #7

 

“Horus Ascending” by Aliette deBodard

First appeared in IGMS issue #8

 

“End-of-the-World Pool” by Scott Roberts

First appeared in IGMS issue #12

 

“A Heretic by Degrees” – by Marie Brennan

First appeared in IGMS issue #10

 

“The Never Never Wizard of Apalachicola” by Jason Sanford

First appeared in IGMS issue #20

 

“Beautiful Winter” by Eugie Foster

First appeared in IGMS issue #13

 

“Blood & Water” – by Alethea Kontis

First appeared in IGMS issue #9

 

“Mean-Spirited” – by Edmund R. Schubert

First appeared in IGMS issue #16

 

“Robot Sorcerer” – by Eric James Stone

First appeared in IGMS issue #10

 

“Aim For The Stars” – by Tom Pendergrass

First appeared in IGMS issue #15

InterGalactic Medicine Show Awards Anthology

We’re pleased to announce that a new anthology collecting award-winning stories from IGMS will be published later this year. 

In addition, other works selected by the editor and publisher will be reprinted.

Stay tuned for more info!

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

Sideshow Datapoints—Gender and My Slush Pile

I specify *my* slush pile because I don’t track the numbers for Eric, Chris, or Sarah’s slush. 

As an assistant editor, it is not my job to ensure gender, racial, or ideological parity in science fiction, fantasy, or horror.  This is a point on which I am unwilling to bend.  It is my job instead to find good stories to recommend to the editor.  As a slush reader I am not concerned with equality, per se; Quality alone is king.

However, I recognize that my own biases may operate to alter my perception of what is Quality.  So I try to recognize my biases and not let them come into contact with my judgment.  It’s pretty much all any of us can do to be impartial—studied self-examination.  Like I said to someone once, I find value in placing my unicorns on the altar of self-examination and cutting them open to make sure they aren’t zombie robots.

Here are my percentages by gender and genre.  The period from which the numbers were obtained runs from February 2010 to last month (May 2011).  The chart only takes into account submissions where gender could be determined by name, and where the submission was identified as Science Fiction, Fantasty, or Horror.

Genre	Gender	Total Received	Percentage of Total	Recommendation Rate (Percentage)
Fantasy	Female	65	38	23
Fantasy	Male	104	62	22
Horror	Female	1	33	0
Horror	Male	2	67	50
Science Fiction	Female	51	25	18
Science Fiction	Male	153	75	30

 

Hopefully, my math is sound.

Looking at the rate that I recommend science fiction written by authors I identified as female versus the authors I identified as male gives me pause; a 12% difference is not insignificant to me.  However, considering that male authors submitted 3 times as many science fiction pieces, I’m cautiously optimistic that there’s more to the story than the idea that I’m a raging chauvanist demon hellboar.

As Edmund said on Magical Words, I cannot control what comes into my slush pile.  In order to determine if the percentages we’re seeing at IGMS are abnormal, I invite slush readers at other mags to lay their unicorns on the table and let us compare anatomies.

That said, I think the numbers support the notion that genders receive fair treatment at Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show.  The thing that we’re looking for—you know, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that what every editor in the field is looking for—are good stories.   

Send some now.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, InterGalactic Medicine Show

The Discriminating Monster’s Guide to the Perils of Princess Snatching—Scott M. Roberts

Discriminating Monster owes its existence to French Toast Casserole. I am not making this up.

Back in 2008, an editor had infuriated some in the speculative fiction community for publishing an anthology that claimed to be something along the lines of 'Best of the BESTEST SF EVAR!!!!11' and had not included any female authors. I don't recall participating in the internet furor that ensued, but the arguments got me thinking about the great gender disparity present in fairy tales.

Are princesses really that much tastier than princes? Sugar and spice vs. puppy dog tails…really? What if it were true?

That wondering set me on the path to writing Vren. For a long time, I was hooked on trying to explain the reasons why monsters go after princesses' destinies (as opposed to princes' destinies), but I could never get the exposition right. It was too heavy handed and political, especially coming from Vren—and I could hardly choose another POV to go at the topic, since I was determined to write this in first-person.

I shelved Discriminating Monster shortly after starting it.

Sometime in the fall of 2010, my wife introduced our family to a delicious new breakfast dish called 'French Toast Casserole.' I include a link to Paula Deen's recipe for the dish, with the warning: like all things from Paula Deen's kitchen, this is not a dish for the faint of heart. Bake at your own risk. However, I promise that if it kills you, you will go to the Great Unknown happily. The smell of cinnamon and nutmeg—and the cozy feeling of family gathered around the table for breakfast—stirred ideas for this story. French toast casserole makes an appearance in Discriminating Monster in acknowledgment of its inspirational powers.

That breakfast provided me with the characters of Zash and Sojet; it also helped me to see a way to keep Mercedes with Vren, rather than running away or trying to kill herself. When I came across the idea that Vren had a family with children of a similar age as Mercedes, I also stumbled on the idea that they were becoming more attached to this princess than Vren was; and of course that provided conflict, which is the best cure for writer's block that I know.

Another element that had been holding me back was that initially, I'd considered Discriminating Monster to be a light-hearted romp through a world that mirrored our own. But…Vren didn't work as Puck. The more I thought about the business that he was engaged in, especially after I added Zash and Sojet to the equation, the less I could see him zinging out one-liners and being flippant. The irony that took the place of flippancy felt much more natural and…justified.

I suppose by mentioning the fact that Discriminating Monster was inspired partly by an internet discussion about gender parity, I'm obligated to provide a statement about what the story ultimately means in that context. I'm hesitant to say what my stories mean, though. What I've written, I've written, and I hate to impose my viewpoint on anyone else's thoughts. Like explaining a joke: the exercise ruins it. I'm happy to discuss possibilities with you though—IGMS affords us a place to scream at one another over on Hatrack.com. I'll be honest, though, even there, I'm not likely to lay down hard declarations about whether or not Vren represents modern utilitarian chauvinism.

I don't want to spoil the novel version.

--Scott M. Roberts

www.lordofallfools.com

Locus Reviewer Recommends ‘The Hanged Poet’

Congrats to Jeff Lyman; his short story in IGMS #23, The Hanged Poet, earned a recommendation from Locus Online’s Lois Tilton!

Link to the review

Excerpt:

Layer after layer of revelation, the backstory becomes more interesting, fuller of significance. The author has done an audacious thing: making a poem the center of his work, declaring the power of the poem to alter human affairs, he is challenging himself to produce that poem. Some authors evade this challenge, but Lyman comes through.

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

Sexism in SF and F

(Note from Scott—this is a repost of an essay written by Edmund Schubert on MagicalWords.net.)

There are several topics that flare up with a certain amount of passion from time to time on the internet, sexism and racism being foremost among them. These are important topics that ought to be discussed, and while I think most start out as well-meaning exchanges, they often deteriorate into exercises in frustration. Someone will make a comment, to which someone else will reply, “That’s racist.” What the second person meant was, “That’s a racist comment,” but often times it’s not what was actually said. The person on the receiving end of that comment will then get indignant and reply, “I not a racist!” and off we go to the racist debate races.

Overall I think the science fiction and fantasy community is one of the most open-minded  communities I know of—we’ve all heard numerous times how the first interracial kiss on network television took place on Star Trek, between Kirk and Uhura—but at the same time, to say that there is no racism or sexism would be so ridiculous as to render the speaker of such  nonsense as a fool or a liar.

Last night I got an email from one of my assistant editors, who said that there’s another kerfuffle (his wonderful word) going on about sexism in SF and F, and out of curiosity, he went back into his records and crunched some numbers to see where he stood. He admitted he “was actually kind of worried that the exercise might reveal some sort of imbalance that might reflect unconscious bias on my part,” but he was interested enough to pursue the numbers, no matter where they led. I have to give him a lot of credit for looking the issue squarely in the eye despite his concerns.

This naturally led others on the team to do the same. It took a while to compile all the numbers, because no one on the team actually tracks them on an ongoing basis (with the one exception that I do track the gender of what we actual publish. However, with submissions, I would very much prefer the assistant editors focus first on the quality of the story and not the gender of its author). Having said all that, here’s the breakdown, by assistant editor:

1)

“I just went through and did the numbers for all the manuscripts I pulled from the regular slush, which gives the following additional information:

Male authors: 135
Female authors: 69

Again, an almost 2:1 ratio of male to female submitters.  (Just to check, I looked at the names on the most recent 100 submissions through the regular slush, and for the clearly gendered names, the male to female ratio was 56:27, so 2:1 seems to be about what we get.)

With these, I just did straight rejection/non-rejection..

Rejection rate for males: 72.6%
Rejection rate for females: 76.8%

A difference of 4.2%, which isn’t all that significant: if I switched just 3 female manuscripts from rejection to non-rejection, the rejection rate for females would have been lower than for males.

Adding the earlier group in with this group:

Male authors: 328
Female authors: 176

Rejection rate for males: 53.7%
Rejection rate for females: 55.0%

For a total of 404 manuscripts, a difference of 1.3% between male and female rejection ratios.”

**********

2)

The next set of numbers ran thusly (with a third category added for people who submitted stories under names that are sexually ambiguous, i.e. R.T. Morganfeld, or Pat Frantella, so ‘O’ is for ‘other’):

“Total Count: 659

By Gender:
F      184        27%
M    411        62%
O    64        9%

Next Action
F    Recommend    26    14%
F    Reject        158    86%
M    Recommend    84    20%
M    Reject        327    80%
O    Recommend    9    14%
O    Reject        55    86%”

**********

3)

“In honor of the latest kerfuffle on the interwebs about sexism in SF, I went through all the submissions sent to me that I have responded to (excluding the ones that were sent in large batches at the very beginning of my tenure.)

Male author: 193
Female author: 102
Male/Female co-authors: 1
Undetermined: 5

So male author submissions outnumber female author submissions almost 2:1.

What about disposition?  I have 4 possible dispositions: Highly Recommended, Recommended, Borderline, Recommend Rejection.

Recommend Rejection rate for males: 40.4%
Recommend Rejection rate for females: 40.2%

Borderline rate for males: 28.0%
Borderline rate for females: 28.4%

Recommended rate for males: 29.5%
Recommended rate for females: 26.5%

Highly Recommended rate for males: 2.1%
Highly Recommended rate for females: 4.9%

Until I went through and counted up these figures today I wasn’t keeping track of my rejection rates at all, let alone by sex. I was actually kind of worried that the exercise might reveal some sort of imbalance that might reflect unconscious bias on my part, but the numbers are remarkably balanced.”

**********

My own contribution to these numbers comes in the form of actual publication numbers. Going back to the beginning of 2008, IGMS has published (or bought and is waiting to publish) 93 stories total, 65 of which were written by men, 28 of which were written by women. Not a perfect 2:1 ratio, but close enough to satisfy me. And to be extremely clear on this subject, I am not in any way, shape, or form, suggesting that we ought to be publishing twice as many male authors as female authors. I can’t control the number of submissions I get from any group or gender; I’m just saying we publish them at about the same ratio that we receive them.

The funny thing (to me, anyway) is that I didn’t really need to see the numbers to know we had a good balance; I could tell by the reactions from readers. I’ve received angry emails from female readers who are convinced we are running a sexist magazine that discriminates against women (here’s a tip for you: getting into a ‘dialogue’ with these kinds of people, trying to convince them you don’t have secret sexist editorial policies, is a fool’s errand), and I’ve also received angry emails from male readers complaining about how I’m always publishing “feminist fiction that tells men women can do whatever they want and the men just have to shut up and take it.”

I figure that as long as I’m equally pissing off both sides, I must be fairly close to getting it right.

So that’s one editor’s experience, along with a peek at the behind-the-scenes numbers. Obviously I can’t speak for the genre as a whole, so I’m curious to hear what the rest of you think, and what experiences you’ve had in this area.

 

--Edmund Schubert,

Editor, InterGalactic Medicine Show

PS: The numbers presented above under #1 and #3 actually came form the same assistant editor, but were regarding his reading different slush piles. We have different avenues of submission for writers with different degrees of experience and this particular editor reads from both piles.

IGMS Hydra Competition - In Brazilian

Follow the link for a fun look at the new contest in Brazilian (which is actually Portuguese).

Hydra Competition for Brazilian Fantastic Literature

Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show (IGMS) and The Elephant and Macaw Banner have partnered up to create a contest that will bring the best of Brazilian speculative fiction to the English-speaking world via the Hydra Competition (Concurso Hydra in Brazil’s native language of Portuguese).

A panel of judges will select three finalists from short stories first published in Brazil in 2009 and 2010. Orson Scott Card, one of the world’s best-selling authors of speculative fiction, will select the winner.

Card says, "Ever since I lived in Brazil in the early 70s, the nation and people of Brazil have been important to me.  That's why in Speaker for the Dead, the colonists are Portuguese-speaking Brazilians!  When I returned to Brazil to take part in a science fiction convention twenty years ago, I made new friends and read the work of some exciting authors.  I've continued following the Brazilian science fiction scene ever since, and I am proud that IGMS will be a means of bringing the work of some of these writers to American readers.  Till now, American readers have had little idea of how much good work is being done in our genre in Brazil."

The winning story will be translated from Portuguese by author Christopher Kastensmidt, finalist in this year’s Nebula Awards and organizer of the Hydra Competition, and it will be published in InterGalactic Medicine Show.

IGMS editor Edmund R. Schubert says, “We’ve been publishing stories from around the globe for nearly as long as the magazine has been online, but it was always the English-language speaking parts of the world. This opportunity to reach into Brazil, to a whole new way of not just speaking, but of thinking and of viewing the world, is exciting. South America and Latin America have long been renowned for incorporating magical realism into their fiction and that’s a perfect avenue for IGMS to explore. I’m incredibly excited to see the stories that come to us out of this contest.”

Competition organizer Christopher Kastensmidt adds, “The Brazilian speculative fiction community has produced hundreds of excellent stories over the last two years, but almost none of them have made the passage to the English-speaking world. Orson Scott Card and the staff at InterGalactic Medicine Show recognize that speculative fiction is international, and their support will make this competition one of the biggest incentives ever for Brazilian writers.”

The name for the Hydra Competition comes from the Hydra constellation. Being a group of stars named after a mythical monster, the Hydra constellation is symbolic of both the fantasy and science fiction produced by the speculative community today. The constellation crosses the celestial equator, joining the northern and southern celestial hemispheres, just as the Hydra competition hopes to join the northern and southern hemispheres of speculative fiction. The Hydra is also one of the constellations on the Brazilian flag.

Submissions will be open from July 1^st through August 15^th and all eligible Brazilian authors are encouraged to participate. Rules will be published in Portuguese on the website Universo Insônia (universoinsonia.com.br). There is no entry fee to participate; however, the winner will receive a publication contract and be paid at IGMS’s full rate.

About Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show

Founded by multiple-award winning author Orson Scott Card, and edited for the past five years by Edmund R. Schubert, IGMS is an award-winning bimonthly online magazine publishing illustrated science fiction and fantasy short stories, audio stories, interviews, reviews, and more. Authors range from established pros like Peter Beagle, Eugie Foster, Marie Brennan, and David Farland to first-time authors making their professional debut. www.oscigms.com

About The Elephant and Macaw Banner

The Elephant and Macaw Banner is a fantasy series set in sixteenth-century Brazil. The stories tell the adventures of Gerard van Oost and Oludara, an unlikely pair of heroes who meet in Salvador. News, artwork, and in-depth explanations of historical and cultural references from the series can be found at the website www.eamb.org.

Into the West—Eric James Stone

I'm a member of the Codex Writers group, and for the past several years we've had a contest called "Codexian Idol."  (The contest was invented by James Maxey, who won the first contest with a story that was later published in IGMS: "To Know All Things That Are in the Earth.")  The contest involves submitting the first 500 words of a story based on prompts, and people vote on which stories they want to read more of.  About half the contestants are eliminated, and the rest submit 1000 more words.  The next round of voting cuts the field down to the finalists, who submit their finished stories for the final voting. 

One year, the contest prompts were sound clips, including one of a train. An additional prompt was "Someone or something lies or misleads, in a big or small way, on purpose or accidentally."  I had recently read The Elegant Universe, a non-fiction book about string theory, which talked about the concept of curled dimensions, and I wondered what would happen if our time dimension somehow got mixed up with a space dimension.  From all that I got the idea of west being the future, and a train that had to keep going west.  The "misleading" in the story is Varney's assertion that the darkness behind them is a black hole.

For the main character, I wanted someone who would have to face one of his fears in the course of the story.   For someone riding a train, a fear of flying might be a little too obvious a choice, but it allowed for the irony of an astronaut who's afraid to fly and gave root to his backstory of the plane crash.

--Eric James Stone

Leviathan Wakes—by James S.A. Corey

"a really kickass space opera; interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written." – George RR Martin

I’m not sure that I can put it any better. I agree on every point with Mr. Martin: James S.A. Corey’s debut novel Leviathan Wakes is as tremendous and affecting an adventure as I’ve ever read.

(Calling it a debut novel is…perhaps not wholly true. James S.A. Corey is the pen-name of writers Daniel Abraham (you may have heard of him) and Ty Franck.)

Here’s the hook from the publisher, Orbit Books:

Welcome to the future. Humanity has colonized the solar system – Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond – but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice hauler making runs from the rings of Saturn to the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for. War is brewing in the system.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer, Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between governments, revolutionaries, and secretive corporations – and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

Leviathan Wakes is a page-turner. You remember that feeling—maybe it was Dune, or Ender’s Game, or Something Wicked This Way Comes—when you’d spend a whole summer afternoon, entranced by a story, and then come night, you’d sneak a flashlight into your bed and keep reading? This is that kind of book. This is a book that grabs your imagination and does not release until the gratifying final pages.

And then promises you more. Leviathan Wakes is the first book in the Expanse series. The sequel, Caliban’s War, is reportedly already at the publisher’s.

I can’t wait.

POST-SCRIPT: Something's in the water-- John Scalzi reviewed this book today, too. Only he got Daniel and Ty's thoughts on writing space-opera. Highly recommended read.

(Thanks to Jamie Todd Rubin for the heads-up.)

Four Wizards and a Funeral—Mike Rimar

 

Four Rewrites and a Sale

by Mike Rimar

I. An Idea

Not long after I learned my neighbor worked in a funeral home, a little voice in my head shouted, "There's a story here, dummy!"

Insulting little. . .

The idea percolated in my mind and while some plots bubbled up nothing really grabbed me. Time passed, other projects came up and the idea remained just that.

II. A Purpose

Months later I joined the Stopwatch Gang writing group. At one of the meetings someone mentioned an upcoming wizard-themed anthology and writing a story turned into a group challenge.

"Hey dummy," said the little voice in my head. "Remember that idea?"

If I ever find that little--

Something clicked and while a wizard undertaker was probably nothing new, in all likelihood it hadn't been done to death, pardon the pun.

A plot took shape and, as I wrote, the story--and narrator, found a voice.

III. A Title

Originally, only three wizards plagued my protagonist. Thinking along those lines, I mulled over possible titles: Three Wizards; Three Little Wizards; Three Wizards and an Undertaker . . .

Hmm.

To think what might have been had I not heard of a certain movie starring Hugh Grant and Andie Macdowell.

Of course, that meant adding an extra wizard, but that's life--and death.

By the umpteenth draft I thought I had a pretty good story and took it to the Stopwatch Gang who showed me I was wrong.

IV. A Good Writing Group

I cannot stress the importance of having colleagues who are willing to give unbiased criticism of your work. If you are a beginning writer, and serious about getting published, join a writing group, or create one. You won't be sorry.

And just to prove my point, Tony Pi, who is also a member, was in the issue previous to this one. Tony convinced me to join the Codex Online Writers Group. A great place to connect with writers and editors.

Having incorporated the SWG's suggestions, I happily, and confidently, sent the story along to the anthology.

V. A Sale

Rejected.

Anthologies are curious beasts. Most, it seems to me, start off with a blanket theme of say, zombie stories, but as the the editor takes submissions and makes a small acceptance pile, a secondary theme might emerge, say, lighthearted zombie romances. So, while your zombie story might be the best thing since Night of the Living Dead, it won't make the cut of what's slowly becoming Zombies in the City.

Yes, I was unhappy my story got rejected, but I didn't lock myself in the bathroom and cry like a schoolgirl. I stopped doing that about a year ago.

What I did do was continue submitting the story until a wise fellow by the name of Edmund R. Schubert saw something other editors had missed. But first, suggestions of his own. I made those fixes and ran them past the SWG in a flurry of emails. They in turn, patiently explained what Edmund really meant, and after making those edits I submitted the story a final time.

Four Wizards and a Funeral is in the June issue of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show.

I hope you enjoy it.

--Mike Rimar

IGMS Issue #23 is Online!

Just so. 

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, InterGalactic Medicine Show

Issue 23 - June 2011

According to a recent press release, issue 23 has an unusual twist to it. Cue the news-magazine style TV music now…

Dateline: Greensboro, NC, June 8, 2011 — Six years after appearing in Writers of the Future XXI together, four of 2005's winners will have stories published in the same issue of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show (IGMS), a leading webzine of science fiction and fantasy. [http://www.InterGalacticMedicineShow.com]

Recent Nebula-winner Eric James Stone, Scott Roberts, Lon Prater, and Mike Rimar—each a 2005 winner of the ongoing Writers of the Future contest—were notified separately this year that the short stories they had submitted to IGMS would appear together in the June 8 issue of the award-winning webzine. "I noticed that we'd all mentioned stories coming out in the same issue and joked that we should call it a reunion," Scott Roberts said.

"It's not unusual for IGMS to publish winners of the Writers of the Future contest," fiction editor Edmund Schubert pointed out. "We regularly receive outstanding submissions from prior winners. What's really odd is publishing so many from the same year in one issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be some kind of record."

Turns out it is a record.

Cover-story author and WotF-winner Scott Roberts brings us, "A Discriminating Monster’s Guide to the Perils of Princess Snatching," a tale of… well, I think the title pretty much sums it up: a tale of the perils of princess snatching.

Next up from WotF gang is "Four Wizards and a Funeral” by Mike Rimar. In it four wizards manage to make a poor mortician’s life miserably complicated with conflicting demands regarding the treatment of their recently deceased comrade’s corpse. Of course, the corpse has plans of its own…

“This Is My Corporation, Eat,” from WotF-winner Lon Prater is a short story about the evolution of one Christian man in a world where faith has been capitalized and commercialized to the nth degree. This story also serves as this issue’s audio feature, performed by Tom Barker.

And in case you’re not tired of hearing me say “WotF-winner” yet, "Into The West” is by WotF-winner and recent Nebula winner Eric James Stone. “Into the West” is an unusual tale of a one-way ticket to the end of the world. You just want to make sure your ticket is for a trip in the other direction…

Lastly, but by no means least, "The Hanged Poet” by Jeffery Lyman is a powerful recounting of a conversation between an exiled general and a woman who was hung by the neck and left for dead many years earlier for her seditious poetry. She can’t completely die until her poetry does too, but the general is a collector of poetry and man in need of a mission.

Also, Darrell Schweitzer brings us an up-close-and-personal look into the latest goings on with Larry Niven.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to repeat an item from last issue’s letter in case you missed it, because it’s simply too good to miss: IGMS for the e-reader -- Kindle, Sony, Nook, Kobo, whatever – any e-reader that you can name.

Currently we have issue 1, and issues 11 through 22 available for free for subscribers, and if you're not a subscriber yet, those same issues are available for single-issue purchase and Kindle-download at Amazon.

Plus, as each new issue goes up, it will be added within a few days to both Amazon and on IGMS for subscribers.

If you're already a subscriber, all you have to do is click on "My Account" (in the upper left-hand corner of any page (except, of course, the home page)) and you'll be able to email yourself a mobipocket file for your e-reader. If you bought even just a single issue back when that was the IGMS subscription model, you can still get that single issue for your e-reader, too.

So a big thanks to our web designer, Scott Allen, for making those issues available for the e-reader, and a big you're welcome to IGMS readers everywhere.

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

P.S. As usual, we've collected essays from the authors in this issue and will post them right here on our blog. Feel free to drop by and catch The Story Behind The Stories, where the authors talk about the creation of their tales.