production meeting May 2014

Well, we had a productive production meeting last night. :) Yes, it was on Cinco de Mayo and we did enjoy some Mexican food and lots of beer. Editor Betsy warned us she might fall on the floor--but luckily this didn't come to pass. Even so we managed to get business done. We are in the process of writing all the folks in hold-for-voting with the good or bad news. The authors receiving good news will also be receiving their contract. The sooner you send the contract back, the sooner we can get your story ready for publication.

Some thoughts on the stories we considered… We had a lot of fantasy in this bunch; it was a little odd. Also curiously, we had more than one gargoyle story. What's up with that? Is there a gargoyle meme floating around?
I don't know if it's good or bad but we had a number of repeat authors in hold-for-voting. Since we don't look at the author name when we're considering the stories, I guess kudos to those authors.

Of course, before we got down to business we had to have a gab-fest about various speculative fiction stuff. I recommended Kristin Cashore's novels to my fellow editors. We had a lively discussion of George R.R.Martin's work which moved on to HBO's incarnation of it. Like many, we expressed our concerns about how rapey it is. Bottom line: it's too rapey.

Don't worry: this is related to Electric Spec business. One of the stories in hold-for-voting this time had an attempted rape of a little girl. It got into hold-for-voting because the girl is saved. But, ultimately, we decided it was too much. Please recall our submission guidelines say We do not consider ..stories with over-the-top sex or violence. Considering two of the Editors have little girls at home, I think it's safe to say we will never publish a story in which a little girl gets raped or even almost raped. Or, for that matter, a little boy. Or anyone else. Bottom line: no rape.

The marvelous May 31, 2014 issue will have several excellent stories! Check back this month as I entice you about them and other aspects of the issue. Thanks for reading. :)