Six Questions for Gary Markette, Editor, Anotherealm

Anotherealm publishes science fiction, fantasy or horror full length stories to 5000 words and flash fiction to 1000 words. Read the complete guidelines here.

SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a submission and why?

GM:

1. No gross errors; grammatical or style errors automatically disqualify a submission.
2. A lack of MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) factor; if I find my attention wandering while I read, the story is in trouble.
3. Strong story elements: interesting characters, crisp dialog, graceful prose, logical progression -- all of these and more are important

SQF: What common mistakes do you encounter that turn you off to a submission?

GM: See my answer to your first question.

SQF: Do you provide comments when you reject a submission?

GM: Not for free; I will critique a story at 1 cent per word at the writer's request. I get almost 300 stories per year and I have a "real" job. I don't have time to teach for free.

    

SQF: Will you publish a submission an author posted on a personal blog? 

GM: Anotherealm buys first electronic publishing rights so, no.

SQF: What do you want authors to know about the submissions you reject and how authors should respond? Along this same idea, do you mind if authors reply with polite questions about the comments they receive?

GM: See my answer to your third question: in essence, if they're purchasing my comments, I PREFER it if they ask questions -- polite or not.

SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?

GM: What format do you prefer for submissions to your magazine?

I get stories typed in many ways and in many formats. Preparing stories for html publication involves significant reformatting time. If, for example, writers submitted their stories in simple ASCII text with single paragraph marks at the end of paragraphs (rather than at the end of each line), they'd have a better chance of publication.

Thank you, Gary. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.

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