the November 2013 production meeting

Our production meeting got off to a rocky start as our regular meeting place was packed and asked us to wait for a long time for seating. Ugh. So, we left and went to another place down the road where margaritas and beers were buy one, get one free. Huzzah! Suffice it to say, this is our new regular place. :)

We, The Editors, try to be as objective as possible with our story selection. Thus, before the meeting we each rank the stories in hold-for-voting on a numerical scale. Interestingly, our pre-meeting rankings were very different this time. It didn't bode well... But when we discussed the stories we ended up with just five that were 'still in the mix', five stories that we all enjoyed, were original, and showed a mastery of craft. Viola; the stories in the issue! We've never had such a harmonious meeting. I'll blog more about the stories a little later in the month. Purely by coincidence (we don't consider the query letters or author names in our objective rankings), four out of five authors were folks we've published before. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it does seem to indicate we like what we like. Also in the issue Editor/Author Betsy will have an interesting essay in Editor's Corner. We've also got some neat art in the works. As we close out our eighth (!) year at Electric Spec, it promises to be another excellent issue.

We'd like to thank our awesome Associate Editor Nikki Baird for her help with the infamous slush pile: Thanks, Nikki!

So, what's next for the November 2013 issue? All the authors who submitted by the October 15, 2013 deadline have been contacted with a yay or nay. If you haven't heard from us, we probably didn't get your story. :( Once we hear back from the 'yay' authors, we start editing their stories and setting up the new issue on our Content Management System. Once we edit the stories, we send them back to authors for their approval, or if needed, for rewrites. Rinse and repeat as necessary. And then it magically all comes together by the end of the month...