Six Questions for John Mannone, Senior Poetry Editor, Abyss & Apex

Abyss & Apex likes to see strong, emotionally resonant, literary-quality poetry with a clear speculative element (fantasy, science fiction, or any combination of the two), as well as scifaiku and what some call “science poetry” or “astronomy poetry.” Although dark fantasy and dark SF are encouraged, we DO NOT publish horror. Read the complete guidelines here.

SQF: What, when reading a submission, really gets you excited?

John Mannone: I get excited when I can publish the best speculative poetry out there. And I get doubly excited when that poetry stimulates the intellect as well as the imagination, but also educates as well as entertains. I get excited when the poem sticks with me after I’ve read it and when it transcends genre. I want poetry that is accessible, but I want literary quality poetry with a speculative element, especially science fiction and fantasy, which also has literary depth (be able to answer the “so what?” question). I favor lyrical work, but conversational pieces are fine provided they too have impeccable rhythm and something more to offer than story. In a recent interview with the editor of Poetry Pacific, Chanming Yuan, I go into more depth on my editorial focus and personal aesthetics.

SQF: What most often turns you off to a submission?

JM: I’ve said it elsewhere before—I eschew cut-up prose arranged to look like a poem. I understand that narratives and conversational pieces could look prosy, but there should be a preponderance of poetic craft present to lift it into poetry. However, the single most flagrant violation I caution against is inattentiveness to rhythm and flow and to the music of words. Even conversationally toned pieces can be skillfully crafted. The other mortal sin is lack of literary depth.

I am usually not impressed by cutesy or clever pieces, and very short work must be stellar to be considered (though it has a better chance for publication if the short pieces are either linked or form a loosely themed constellation).

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

JM: In general, no. I tend not to publish material posted on a personal blog, especially because we are a paying market. I want material that hasn’t appeared anywhere before that would be available to the general public.

SQF: What do you want authors to know about the submissions you reject and how authors should respond?

JM: I am going to answer a broader question—my process of selection/rejection. I personally read each submission several times over a period of time before I respond. The process is a little different here than for other venues because though we publish quarterly, we have only two specific monthly windows during which we accept poetry submissions electronically (June and December). I read the poems when they arrive in my inbox to get a general sense of the work. I record my first impressions. A week or two later, I do a more careful reading and cull the selections for the ones that merit a closer look, and then again at the end of the reading period to make the final selections for the next two issues. With the author’s permission, I may carry/hold some work over, but I try to avoid that; it is best for the author to make submissions early in the reading period. Every piece submitted receives serious attention. Understand, however, a poem arriving in my inbox on the last day will only get those several readings in the same day instead of being spread out over a few weeks. 

Another reason I don’t make quick decisions is so that I can better see how all the final-round poems might work together. (And reading all the poems at the same time helps mitigate any fluctuations of my mood.) Often, I make editorial suggestions that I think will improve the poems I want to publish; I like to work closely with the author. I am saddened when I have to turn away good work, but I often send a personal note of encouragement. I do have form responses, but they are tiered and tailored for often-seen reasons. Because I hate receiving form responses full of abstractions, I try to be a little more helpful to the authors I must turn away. Occasionally, I’ll recommend other venues, if I recognize the poem fits thE other magazine’s aesthetic better than it does ours. I always welcome polite responses from the authors.

SQF: Based on your experience as an editor, what have you learned about writing?

JM: One of the most important things I learned is to make sure my personal submissions show a dynamic range of style, voice, and form (consistent with the aesthetics of the venue). I cannot tell you how many times I have seen little to no variation from one poem to the next in a submission package from a particular author (and that’s for every venue I have edited and poetry contest I have judged). I recognize that sometimes it is like a stylistic signature, but most often it is not. Editors want to see some range of style, and that’s one reason you’ll often be asked to submit 3 to 5 poems.

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

JM: None at the moment.

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

NEXT POST: 6/6--Six Questions for Joseph Levens, Editor, The Summerset Review

Six Questions for Tammy Ho Lai-Ming and Jeff Zroback, Co-Editors, Cha

Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, founded in 2007, a decade after the handover, is the first Hong Kong-based English online literary journal; it is dedicated to publishing quality poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, reviews and photography & art from and about Asia. Pieces first published in the journal have been translated into Japanese, Swedish and French. 

(ceased publication)

SQF: Why did you start this magazine?

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming & Jeff Zroback: We started Cha in the summer of 2007 because we realized that Hong Kong did not have an English-language online literary journal. Such journals are very common in the West but are less widely available in Asia. From our observation, we also knew that there is a lot of great writing in English in Asia but that it often goes unnoticed. We therefore decided to found Cha, as a means of trying to support new writing from and about Asia. As one of us (Jeff) is an editor by trade and we both had had the experience of editing literary works, we felt that we were in a good position to start the journal.

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

THL & JZ: 

1) Good writing – Of course!

2) Perspective – We are drawn to submissions that provide a fresh or honest perspective on their subject matter. For prose, we usually look for pieces that offer a take on “the Asian experience” which feels particularly original or insightful. For poetry, we are less concerned that the work has a specifically Asian theme, but we are still looking for originality and honesty.

3) It varies – For every issue, we have a guest poetry editor and a guest prose editor, who are writers that have previously appeared in the journal. Because they all bring their own sensibilities and preferences to the submissions, what kinds of pieces we accept varies from issue to issue. We really appreciate the new perspectives the guest editors bring to the journal – they keep Cha feeling fresh and prevent us from rehashing the same themes and subjects.

SQF: What most often turns you off to a submission?

THL & JZ: Poor writing, well-worn subject matter, trying too hard, doing too little.

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

THL & JZ: Considering what we just said above, this might sound a tad hypocritical, but we don’t normally provide comments. Due to the number of submissions we receive, it would be impossible to provide personalised feedback on every one of them. The exception is if a piece was strong and just missed being published in Cha – then we might send some comments to the author explaining why he/she just missed the cut. More often than not, we provide comments when we *accept* a submission, especially if one of the editors is moved enough to write a few sentences explaining why he/she liked the piece.

SQF: Based on your experience as an editor, what have you learned about writing?

THL & JZ: That it is really hard to write well, but that there are a surprising number of people who still manage to do it.

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

THL & JZ: Which writer would you most like to publish in Cha? The new one, whose first publication is with us.

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

NEXT POST: 5/30--Six Questions for John Mannone, Senior Poetry Editor, Abyss & Apex

Six Questions for Michele Graf, et al. Co-founders, Poetic Muselings

Poetic Muselings is a blog that publishes and discusses poetry.

(ceased publication)


SQF: Why did you start this blog?

MG:  The short version: Six women from around the US (who’ve never met in person) wrote and critiqued poetry together in cyberspace following the 2008 Muse Online Writers Conference.  We each experienced some very rough water during our collaborative time, both personally and with the process. Our efforts resulted in "Lifelines", a 106-page book of poems published by Inkspotter Publishing in November 2011.

We developed Poetic-Muselings.net as a marketing platform, and realized quickly that our passion for the book and the creative process demanded more of us than simply hawking Lifelines. I believe our blog beautifully demonstrates the best of a supportive environment to nurture this energy. (Our bios are at the end.)

Lifelines did well in the Preditors and Editors Readers Poll for “Best Of 2011” in cover art (#3), best poets (#3), and best anthology (#10).


SQF: You plan to publish guest poems. How will these be chosen?

MG: We want to foster a collaborative spirit, and encourage our readers to participate actively with us. We held our first contest in December, asking readers to answer these questions:

Who is your favorite poet?
What is your favorite poem?
and, most important:
Why did you select this is poem or poet? What  grabs you?

Responses came in from England, Eire, and Nigeria, as well as the US and Canada. Poets named range from Sylvia Plath, Ted Kooshier, Ogden Nash, and C.S. Lewis, to several we had not known about, but were delighted to find and read. The range of poems was equally eclectic.

One person who responded, but was not selected as our winner, was so inspired by her favorite poem, that she wrote one of her own in that style. We loved it and published it as one of our posts.

We would love to bring our readers in as “honorary Poetic Muselings,” publish their poetic response to a post, a form, or simply something that moves them.  We’ve an interesting story behind our book. When we publish a contributor's poem, we want to include some of their “story behind the story”, too.


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

MG: Yes. We do not require exclusive rights for poems we publish. If they do appear elsewhere, we would like to note that, so readers can follow those links. And, we would appreciate our link added to wherever else the poem is already posted.

We do require permission from others who wish to republish poems or materials we have written and posted on our blog.


SQF: What is different about your blog?

MG: Time frenzy aside, we're having enormous fun stretching, dabbling in areas we would avoid if we worried about being perfect and contained. We've already written about several poetic forms, marketing, collaborative efforts, collaging, creativity, and more - 50 posts since early November. We plan interviews with other creative souls, not limited to poetry.

We’ll have writing workshops, offering our eyes to look at a poem. We started with two versions of one of mine that just never quite worked right. From comments and our experiments with form, I have several options to totally rework this piece, and will post my revisions.

Since I rarely take off my other hat as Poetry Editor for Apollo's Lyre, I plan a series about what I look for in submissions, how I select the blend of poems for an issue, and how to work with an editor to polish a poem.


SQF: What's important to know about collaborative efforts?

MG: We started as an open group of drop-ins. Some were participants in the two poetry workshops that served as our foundation. Others joined to be part of a writing group. We came from different levels of talent, habits, interests, forms, seriousness, and idiosyncrasies. We ended up with about sixteen people at our max.  Most eventually left, and the rest of us worked to form a cohesive unit, searching for a common theme.

Rule number one in our view would be to form your group slowly, choose your members wisely. You want others around you who can help you grow, are astute in observation, thorough, will follow through, be honest yet kind in their critiques, be willing and able to receive criticism, are at similar levels of talent, who listen, and give at least as much as they get in return.

Keep it small enough to be functional and just large enough to maintain balance. Someone must be the project manager, but not wear all the hats. Each member needs to be able to step up and take over duties.

And above all else the group needs to develop trust in each other and confidence in themselves. We will write more about all of this in our blog.


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

MG: What is the biggest downside of doing a project like this, and your most frustrating moment?

Ouch. The realization that no matter how hard you try, there are some people who just aren't going to fit; who really need to be part of something else, not your group… and what to do about them.

My husband shook his head at me when I told him some of our stories and frustrations. "Kick them out!"

"I can't do that, this isn't just my group."

"Then you leave."

Our theme of lifelines may explain it, though --  we were extending lifelines, not cutting them. In the end perhaps it worked out as needed. We made it safely to shore, stronger and more successful than we dreamed.

Thank you, Jim, for the opportunity to introduce ourselves. New Readers -- let us know you found out about us at “Six Questions For”!

Michele
---

Bios:

The Poetic Muselings: Read all about us:  http://poetic-muselings.net/.
Lifelines is available at http://tinyurl.com/LifelinesPoetryhttp://tinyurl.com/LifelinesPoetry (Amazon.com).
                          
Michele M. Graf is a writer, editor, and eclectic reader of poetry, fiction, essays, and just about anything with words. She views life in images and vivid colors, with intense emotions and curiosity. She and her hubby spent ten years on a 100,000+ mile RV journey traveling around the US and Canada, doing it at an age when most sensible people are squirrelling their stash for retirement.
           
Michele is Chief Bossy Person and editor of (and poet in) the Lifelines anthology project; and  Poetry Editor for the award-winning e-zine, Apollo's Lyre. Her other websites, RoadWriter and Gluten-Free Travel, by Graf, are undergoing major updates.

Mary W. Jensen is an introverted poet and writer who escapes into imaginary worlds, where she dances to fairy music no one else can hear. In addition to Lifelines, her poetry has been published in the fantasy webzines Moon Drenched Fables and Abyss & Apex. Visit her at her website http://feywriter.webs.com/ and blog http://marywjensen.blogspot.com/.

Born and raised in New York City, Margaret Fieland has been around art and music all her life. She is an avid science fiction fan, and selected Robert A. Heinlein's “Farmer in the Sky” for her tenth birthday, now long past. In spite of making her living as a computer software engineer, she turned to one of her sons to format the initial version of her website, a clear illustration of the computer generation gap. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Melusine, Front Range Review, and All Rights Reserved. Her book, "Relocated," a tween sci-fi novel,  will be available from MuseItUp Publishing in July, 2012.  Her book,  "The Angry Little Boy," will be published by 4RV Publishing in early 2013. You may visit her website.

When not herding cats, Anne Westlund can be found studying, crafting or cooking.  She lives in Western Washington, near the coast, with her family and cat, Betty Boop. Five of her poems and three of her photographs  have been published in the first Restoration Earth Journal published by Ocean Seminary College. Visit her website at http://flavors.me/annepoptart.

Lin Neiswender knew she was a writer in 4th grade, when she saw her first theme on the bulletin board at Parent’s Night. Her flash fiction and poems have been published in print and online.  "The Haunted Heart", her latest short story, took third place in the Edgar Allan Poe Short Story Contest. She lives in Orlando, Florida, where she is owned by a feisty cat and laid-back dog. The dog's only excitement in life is to try and eat the mailman, go figure. Contact her here: The Poet in Me; Land of Lin; and Lin52.

Kristen Howe has published poems online and in print, as well as some nonfiction articles. She’s a former Jersey Girl, now living in Ohio, and is focusing her attention these days on several novels she’s writing and revising.

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

NEXT POST: 3/5-Six Questions for Suzanne Vincent, Editor in Chief, Flash Fiction Online

Six questions for Stephen, Poetry Editor, Abyss and Apex

Six questions for Stephen, Poetry Editor, Abyss and Apex

Abyss & Apex Magazine of Speculative Fiction publishes speculative fiction and poetry. As for poetry, the editor "likes to see strong, emotionally resonant, literary-quality poetry with a clear speculative element, as well as scifaiku and what some call 'science poetry' or 'astronomy poetry.' Both traditional and modern or nontraditional formats are encouraged, and we have no length restrictions for poetry. Wow us with a sestina, or stun us in free verse. We admire poetry that exceeds our expectations in scansion, imagery, emotional impact and creative wordplay. We love language, and we like to see it worked for all it’s worth. Our love of poetry exceeds the space and funds we have to publish it, so we accept only the very best; amaze us!" Read the complete guidelines here.


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

SW: First, I’d like to point out that I just took over as Poetry Editor for Abyss & Apex in June 2011, so I didn’t write the poetry guidelines above and at some point I might write my own version of them. With that said, I agree with them which is probably why Editor-In-Chief Wendy S. Delmater chose me for the job—I understand the aesthetics of what A&A is looking for from its poetry contributors.

As to the question, I think a poem should pack an emotional punch be it melancholy, romantic, humorous or even angry, which, in my mind is the point of poetry. Those emotions need to be relevant to people’s lives in some way, especially when dealing with speculative genres such as SF and fantasy where too much focus on world building, setting and description can distract from the human side of a piece.

Layers are important. Where an amateur can be ambiguous in a way that is confusing, a skilled poet can use ambiguity as an advantage. At the opposite end of that, there are many words in the English language that are synonymous to each other, but finding that one word which perfectly encapsulates what the writer intends to convey can make all the difference between a good poem and an amazing one. I respect the classics and am a big fan of allusions when done with subtly and deftness.

Whether in concept or style, uniqueness is important. I’m a sucker for surrealism and odd structures. I also like writing that pushes boundaries. Of course, without the aspects of emotions and layers mentioned above, uniqueness alone is not enough.


SQF: What are the top three reasons a poem is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to question one and why?

SW: Well the most obvious reason is that they are just not good. This may seem to be a subjective thing, but I’ve been doing this for several years—I currently edit three separate publications—and with that kind of experience and exposure to so much of what is being written and submitted, it’s not hard to discern between quality and crap. I’m a hands-on editor, though, and, if I see something with potential, I’m not afraid to offer editorial suggestions and work with a poet to help improve a piece to make it more publishable.

Another is not following the guidelines. Personally, I’m a big fan of horror, but A&A is specifically a SF and fantasy venue and implicitly states in the guidelines that they do not publish horror. Along the same lines, people submit poetry that is not speculative in nature.

Another reason, and the saddest one, is sheer numbers. Abyss & Apex is listed first alphabetically in many market listings and I could easily receive a hundred plus submissions, with 2 or 3 poems in each, per quarterly reading period with slots for only maybe 3-12 poems max in each of the quarterly issues.


SQF: What other mistakes do you encounter that turn you off to a poem?

SW: Wordiness. I don’t mean length, but excessive descriptors—what a poet leaves out of a poem, and therefore to the imagination of the reader, is just as important as what they decide to included. The “show don’t tell” rule applies to poetry just as much as, if not more than, it does to fiction.

Something that is prevalent in speculative genres, especially fantasy, is the reinterpretation of myths and fairy tales. There is a long history of this in both fiction and poetry with works such as Anne Sexton’s Transformations, many of the short stories of Angela Carter, and a whole series of anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling as modern examples. I enjoy these when they are done well (and have done some of this in my own writing), but it seems that in the last several years, there is a new crop of writers and several journals that write and publish these sort of pieces exclusively. I wouldn’t call it a “mistake” per say, but what can affect my take on a poem of this particular ilk is if I’ve seen better versions of whatever is trending at the time. And they do trend in cycles whether it is a retelling of the Tam Lin story from a feminist perspective or a contemporary version of Medusa. So, as an editor, it is not uncommon to see several versions of whatever the flavor-of-the-month is during one reading period. If there is one really good, really unique version, it is going to make the rest uninteresting. This “trending” is not endemic to fantasy, SF does it also—one year everyone writes about the moon, the next everyone writes about Mars or DNA or … And with horror, vampires and zombies have both become cliché (but there are still good poems written about both).

I’m not as easily bothered as some editors are by such things as spelling errors or typos. I believe that just because someone uses “your” instead of “you’re” or “it’s” instead of “its” that that doesn’t mean they can’t be brilliant writers—maybe English is not their first language, or they might be dyslexic or have come to trust the spellchecker too much (as many of us do in this day-and-age). If a piece is otherwise interesting, these are easy corrections to make with a good proof reading.


SQF: What is the best part of being an editor?

SW: There are both technical and creative skills involved with editing that fulfill left and right brain functions. I like the sense of collaboration and community involved with editing. Many editors are also readers and writers of whatever genres that they are working in. As a reader, I love to share things that I’ve enjoyed reading with other readers. As a writer, I constantly learn new ideas and techniques to use in my own writing.


SQF: I read a comment by one editor who said she keeps a blacklist of authors who respond to a rejection in a less than professional manner. I'm sure you know what I mean. What do you want authors to know about the stories 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?

SW: As a writer, I don’t understand the need to respond to a rejection. But, as an editor, I guess I wouldn’t mind a response, as long as it wasn’t an attack. When I first started editing poetry, which was back in 2005 for Doorways Magazine, I had the luxury of writing to people whose writing I liked and asking them if they would submit something. That worked for the first few issues and I was able to avoid sending out rejections, which was something, as a writer, I was a little uncomfortable doing. Then the magazine’s editor asked me to have an open reading period. At first, I was very uncomfortable with the idea that I would have to reject other writers. It ended up being a blessing in disguise because I was exposed to some great writers that I otherwise would’ve never had the opportunity to read or accept for publication.

I still have qualms about the rejection process, especially because the spec poetry community is relatively small and I know many of the poets who submit, but it is part of the job. With Abyss & Apex, we have a standard rejection form, which does make it easier, and I have three assistant editors to help me with sending these out, both of which makes it feel less personal to me.

As far as blacklisting, I believe a good editor knows how to be objective and separate the artist from the art and their personal feelings from their professional ones. I am passionately against blacklisting or any other form of censorship based on someone’s personality or politics or religion or sexual persuasions or whatever. I would only blacklist someone if I perceived them as an actual threat or they were a serial killer or a pedophile or something. I know that there are a handful of editors who will never publish me, even if I sent them a masterpiece, because we have butted-heads in social outlets such as LiveJournal or Facebook. I find that to be ridiculous and unprofessional, but that’s their right, and knowing this, I wouldn’t waste my time submitting to them.

What would I like poets to know about poems I reject? I would like them to read my answers to questions 1-3 carefully.


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

SW: Maybe, who are some of my favorite poets? That answer can change from day to day, but there are a handful of poets that are always on that list. Some of my favorite living poets include: W. S. Merwin, Ray Bradbury, Jane Yolen, Ursula K. Le Guin, Linda D. Addison, Mike Arnzen, and John Edward Lawson. As for the classics, I’m a fan of Yates, Byron, Shelley, Blake, Milton, Goethe, Poe, Frost, and the highly underappreciated Gerard Manley Hopkins. This is, of course, hardly a comprehensive list.

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

NEXT POST: 12/19--Six Questions for Patrick Trotti, Editor, (Short) Fiction Collective

Six Questions for E.S. Wynn, Editor, Daily Love

Daily Love publishes a new love story every day. The editors are looking for fiction to 4,000 words (1,000 or less preferred) poetry, experimental forms, etc.

(ceased publication)


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

EW: For Daily Love, I tend to look for uniqueness and skill in storytelling above all else. Sure, there aren't a lot of untold stories within the love poetry / romance genre, but that doesn't mean a told-to-death story can't be a good story. Being a daily magazine, Daily Love is pretty open when it comes to submissions. Writers with a firm story to tell who can infuse that story with elements that make it fresh and provocative are sure to be accepted at Daily Love, though always make sure to proofread anything you send my way.


SQF: What are the top three reasons a story is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to question one and why?

EW: I think the number one reason I reject pieces that come into Daily Love has got to be typos. I'm not going to reject a piece outright if a few words are misspelled, but if I have to go through and radically rebuild the whole thing from scratch because every other sentence has a serious grammatical error, the story better be the most amazing story I've ever read. Sad laments about broken hearts tend to get tossed aside as well, mostly because there are so many of them. Everyday at least five poorly written poems cross my desk about how much it hurts that "he" or "she" left the writer and how much the writer wants that person back, even if just for one more kiss. I'm not faulting people for their feelings and I'm certainly not devaluing them, but if Daily Love was all this kind of poetry, who would want to read it? I wouldn't. Not every story has to be a happy ascent into the heavens of bliss (I get a ton of those too), but realistic, romantic, heart-gripping love stories with both pain and happiness are what really hit my sweet spot. The third reason is most certainly length. Granted, Daily Love isn't exclusively a flash-length fiction site, but as both an editor and a reader, I prefer writing under 800 words. Writers who send me something in the 2,000 to 5,000 word range usually have to wait a week (or two) for me to stop putting off reading their work, and by then, the schedule has often filled up.


SQF: What other mistakes do you encounter that turn you off to a story?

EW: If anything for me is a pet peeve, its rhyming couplets. I have read so many rhyming couplets at this point that I have to fight my instincts and not immediately reject them without a cursory read. Now, poems that rhyme in strange and creative ways (not couplets!) and show a great deal of poetic skill through elegant consonance and alliteration are intriguing, but the best pieces (in my opinion) rhyme only when it suits the emotion of a particular line. Poetry isn't soft serve ice cream. You can't just squirt it into a form and call it a poem because the words you chose rhyme. Poetry is liquid emotion. It is art. It is thought, condensed.


SQF: What is it about the characters in a story that makes them pop off the page and grab hold of you?

EW: Realistic dialog is the thing that usually hooks me. Characters with interesting, well-defined traits hook me. I love stories that aren't fairytale happy or tragedy sad. Love is life, it is real life, and real life is happy, sad, comical and strange all at once. The best stories often are too.


SQF: I read a comment by one editor who said she keeps a blacklist of authors who respond to a rejection in a less than professional manner. I'm sure you know what I mean. What do you want authors to know about the stories 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?

EW: When I first started editing, I was against the idea of the blacklist, but as time has gone on, I've had to institute one. I have never blacklisted someone for responding to rejections with frustration or anger because I understand where they are coming from (and I think penalizing them for something I too have felt in my younger days is both petty and elitist), but I have blacklisted (after a warning) those who try to pull stories out of my schedule even after a solid agreement has been made. One of the most infuriating things that any writer has ever done to me is to send me a submission, wait until I accept it, load it into the schedule and move on before suddenly deciding the day before the launch that another, perhaps more prestigious (in their eyes) or higher paying magazine should have it instead. Sending a submission to Daily Love constitutes a legally binding agreement to allow the site to publish that story if it is accepted by Daily Love before another site agrees to publish it. Backing out once everyone has come to a complete agreement is not only extremely irritating, it constitutes the breaking of trust and of a contract. I don't mind if writers send polite questions, ask for clarification, or even call me dirty names because I've rejected their masterpiece (all have happened before) I just ask that they don't send me a story, thank me for accepting it, turn around and sell it to another magazine, then yank the rug out from under my feet the day before the story is scheduled to hit the site. Nothing is more unprofessional and callous in my opinion. It's like writing a check you know is going to bounce and then giving it to a starving street musician who is playing to try to make the rent.


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

EW: I think one of the most interesting things I have encountered while editing for Daily Love is the number of people who send me stories under one name and then later ask me to change that name to a separate pen name. I don't mind doing it, and I understand the reasons why people choose to do it, but the frequency of it is interesting, for lack of a better word. For better or worse, love and sex are still very much sensitive subjects in the minds of men and women.

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

NEXT POST: 12/15--Six Questions for Stephen M. Wilson, Poetry Editor, Abyss and Apex

Six Questions for Wendy S. Delmater, Editor, Abyss & Apex Magazine of Speculative Fiction

Per the website: "Abyss & Apex publishes the finest in speculative and imaginative fiction and poetry. We are are looking for character-driven stories that remain with us long after the first reading. Short stories up to 10,000 words and flash fiction with fewer than 1,500 words are accepted. There is no length limitation on poetry." Read the complete guidelines here.

WD: Very hard sells: fairytale retellings, vampires, and sword and sorcery (especially of the generic extruded European fantasy variety. Elves! Argh!) We publish them so very, very, very rarely that you are better off sending such stories elsewhere.

I love your story / Please send more soon. But only / ones without vampires


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

WD: Plot, characterization and novelty. Let me expand on each one.

* Plot: slice of life just does not cut it. The person has to change, and/or the situation.

* Characterization: Let me get inside that character's world and feel their peril, pain or pleasure as my own. I like characters our readers can identify with. Character is king.

It was a nice try / But your characters are weak / I am not their crutch

* Novelty: We like things that are new and different. For that reason I am especially leery of the constant raft of open anthology rejects. Believe me, I know what antho just closed, and I received about 20 other stories that were written for it when I got yours. This is not the road to uniqueness, people.

Seen this before and / expect my readers have too / many, many times

BONUS! If you have lyrical prose on top of the above, you're golden. Especially if there is nice thematic structure, layering and circularity.


SQF: What are the top three reasons a story is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to question one and why?

WD:
* As Strunk and White would say, "Omit useless words." Wordiness, especially descriptive wordiness, can ruin the flow of a tale and throw me out of the story.

* And for Pete's sake please do not send us novel excerpts with unfinished plot threads . . .

* . . .or thinly disguised fanfic for popular TV shows.

We can’t touch Star Trek/with a ten-foot legal pole/Read the guidelines, twit

For that matter please, please, please do not take that wonderful storyline from your role-playing game and try to publish it: we can tell, trust me, and it won't fly any better than a lead glider with us!


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

WD:
* Showing instead of telling

* Gratuitous violence or sex

* Slow start -- no hook in the opening paragraph. (If that's all that is wrong I may ask for a rewrite, but usually it is a harbinger of things to come.)

Story has no hook / Fell asleep on second page / Please excuse the drool


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

WD: * I like to but...not always. Time constraints, you know.


SQF: I read a comment by one editor who said she keeps a blacklist of authors who respond to a rejection in a less than professional manner. I'm sure you know what I mean. What do you want authors to know about the stories 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?

WD: I only blacklist those who make simultaneous submissions. I don't mind a little thanks that I spent time on a helpful comment, but I'd rather not become an author's pen pal. As for the rude and nasty writers, they usually shoot themselves in the foot with no help at all from me.


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

WD: How do you feel about submission guidelines?

Guidelines. We has 'em. Why don't people read them? For example, A&A very clearly states that we have four reading periods. We get submissions outside of our reading periods all the time. We also get non-genre stories when all we publish is science fiction and fantasy.

We have guidelines up / How many times must we ask? / Read them at our site

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

NEXT POST: 2/5/10—Six Questions for Six Questions for Rick Rofihe, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Anderbo

Six Questions for J.W. Wang, Editor, Juked

Juked accepts stories of any length as long as they fit the magazine's editorial style. Any author wishing to submit a work to Juked should read a few issues before sending a story. A note on the web site states that longer stories have been preferred by the editors. 

(Ceased publication)


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

JW: I don’t think anyone goes into a story with a specific checklist of things they look for. Or maybe I should just speak for myself: I go into each story with as open a mind as I can. We publish a wide range of material.  Sometimes it’s more “experimental,” sometimes it’s more “traditional,” which I take to be mostly a categorization of form. I suppose the best thing a story can have going for it is a strong, compelling voice.  You look at all the rules being broken by various stories, and if they get away with what they’re doing, nearly all the time you can attribute it to voice. There’s a reason for that: a strong, compelling voice denotes sympathy and understanding for a major character, and if you have a complex and compelling character, we’re likely to follow and see where the story goes. That said, I do look for well-crafted sentences, something to suggest care was put into the actual writing. The language is our set of tools, after all, and it’s pretty apparent whether a writer has spent time working with it. I suppose related to both is the complexity of the writing, whether the sentences reveal nuance and aren’t just direct statements.


SQF: What are the top three reasons a story is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to question one and why?

JW: Much of the time a story gets rejected because the writing’s just not very strong; there’s a lot of overt and direct telling and little subtlety, or the writing consists of clichés and other familiarities. Another big turnoff is this obsession with cleverness that’s really popular for some reason: many people are more interested in sounding clever than they are in constructing a story. There’s little sympathy towards the characters, who feel like they’re just little pawns being pushed around by someone who is more concerned with showing off their wit or writing skills. Closely related to this are stories that are highly conceptual, so that the story’s less a story about people than it is about some great metaphor. And I mean, it could be a great metaphor, but if we don’t care about the people in the story, then there’s little reason to read on. Poor spelling and grammar is always a good reason; chances are if the writer can’t spell or put together a correct sentence, the story’s not going to be any good either. I realize all the things I just said are more or less flipsides to #1, so I’ll offer a couple of other things (that aren’t “top three reasons”): zombies or vampires or other genre elements that do nothing to challenge our conception of these tropes; starting off a story with a line of dialogue is typically risky business; second person storytelling is also risky and hard to do, but apparently quite popular.


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

JW: This is more or less the same as #2, no? On the sentence level, I can offer a few more specific things. People often try to write simultaneity with sentence constructions like “As he sat down in the passenger seat, she slammed the door.” This as-something-something, something-something construction is overused and pretty dreadful, because most of the time it’s used incorrectly—if she slammed the door at the very moment he’s sitting down, he’d be wedged in and feeling great pain. It would be much simpler if people just wrote chronologically:  He sat down in the passenger seat, and she slammed the door. Another thing is describing how people look at another; a lot of weaker stories have abundant lines that read like, “He looked at her,” and “She cut him a look.” The instinct here is to put in something interesting, but looking by itself isn’t enough most of the time. Funny fonts are no good; stick with Times New Roman 12 point. Don’t use all caps to suggest louder voices. Or exclamation marks and question marks together. 


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

JW: No, unfortunately we don’t have the manpower (humanpower?) to do so. 


SQF: I read a comment by one editor who said she keeps a blacklist of authors who respond to a rejection in a less than professional manner. I'm sure you know what I mean. What do you want authors to know about the stories 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?

JW: We’ve gotten plenty of responses that were “less than professional.” I think once someone wrote back and said, “Eat shit.” Rejections are hard, and I feel bad whenever we send one out, but it’s necessary and a part of the process. You don’t ever need to respond to a rejection, but if you do, it can only help you to be gracious. I personally don’t mind when authors reply with questions, but again, we don’t really write comments, so there’s not much more we can say. And no, we don’t keep a blacklist. People change over time, right? The author who wrote us two years ago is not the same author today.


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

JW: Can’t think of any. I’ll offer a thought instead. I personally don’t think it is beneficial for an author to flood a publication, sending in something immediately after a rejection, even if it’s a positive rejection. I believe in waiting some time, revising and working, before sending out something else. These days a lot of journals use Submittable or some other online system, and the readers can see immediately every story you’ve submitted and when you submitted them. If there’s a long list of rejected manuscripts and there’s little time in between, it’s only going to make the reader think this is just going to be another one in a long line of crappy stories.


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

NEXT POST: 2/3/10—Six Questions for Wendy S. Delmater, Editor, Abyss & Apex Magazine of Speculative Fiction