Production Meeting Notes

Winter is packing a wallop here in the U.S. Rocky Mountains! We recently had our production meeting for the fabulous February 2023 issue of Electric Spec and the weather was so bad, we had to do virtual! Yes, snowing. Yes, temps near zero degrees Fahrenheit. Ugh.

It's always intriguing to see the variety, or lack thereof, in hold-for-voting story themes/topics we get for a particular issue. This time there were multiple apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic world stories. Read into that what you will. As editors, we were not feeling it for the post/apocalyse.
Curiously, we had more than one finalist story featuring twins...
Next week, I'll start blogging about our exciting new issue right here!

At the meeting we also had a discussion about AI-generated prose and art. Bottom line: don't submit this to Electric Spec. We will be amending our submission page to reflect this.

We have been having trouble with authors not receiving our rejection or acceptance emails. Please check your spam and junk folders.
All editors will contact their authors with the good news and contracts by the end of this week. All rejections have been sent out. Thus, if you submitted within the Feb 2023 issue window and don't hear from us by the end of this week...possibly your email software shunned our message. :(

Take care and stay warm!

Approve Our Email Address

We've been working hard on the fabulous February 2023 issue of Electric Spec. Unfortunately, several emails we sent to authors this month were unsucessful. Please check your Junk, Spam, and similar folders! We already discussed Whitelisting here. Below is some more info for other email software; your specific case may be slightly different. In all cases, authors should approve our submissions at electricspec dot com address.

• Yahoo! Mail Click the Contacts icon located in the upper right-hand corner of your Yahoo! Mail Inbox Homepage. When you scroll over the first icon, it should say 'Contacts'. Click 'Add a new contact' located below the list of your contacts. Fill in the contact details and paste the email address you wish to add to your contact list. Click Save.
• AOL Mail Locate the Contacts option on the left navigation bar of your AOL Mail Home Page (under the Trash folder). Click New Contact icon.Type the contact information in the required and optional fields. Scroll to the bottom and click Add Contact. A confirmation message that the contact has been created will appear.
• Apple iPhone Mail App Tap 'Create New Contact' from the menu at the bottom of the screen.
• Android Gmail App Tap the 'Add Contact' icon located in the top right-hand corner.

Good Luck!

Editor Fisher

As we work hard behind the scenes on the fabulous February 2023 issue of Electric Spec, we're pleased to announce a new associate editor: Collette Fisher.

Collette Fisher grew up on a farm in eastern Iowa, got degrees from Michigan State University (German and math) and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (library science). She worked in the library of the chancery office of the Archdiocese of Freiburg, Germany for 41 years, and lives with her husband in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany. She has published "Blue Sunset", inspired by Spoon River Anthology and The Martian Chronicles, electronically and has had stories published in Fiction River, Pulphouse, Penumbric Speculative Fiction, Alien Dimensions, 4 Star Stories, Fabula Argentea, The Lorelei Signal, Dark Horses, Wyldblood Magazine, and other magazines and anthologies.

She says: I encourage all writers to keep submitting while continuing to write new stories. You never know who will love which story you have written. It could indeed be the next one you write that is the one everyone will remember. At a workshop in 2018 I asked two successful writers how many rejections I should "collect" for a story before I gave up and just published it myself. One writer said "50", and the other said "75". I have decided to follow this advice.

Thanks for the advice, Collette! And welcome aboard!

Deadline Looming and Locus

Savvy authors know the deadline for the fabulous February 2023 issue of Electric Spec is looming. Please submit your stories by midnight (US Mountain Time)! We already have a good crop of stories: Thank You!

Really savvy authors know about Locus Magazine, a monthly print 'zine covering the science fiction and fantasy field since 1968. It publishes news of the science fiction, fantasy, horror, and young-adult publishing field. At the end of every year they ask other editors about their zines. Here are some of the responses Electric Spec Editors gave for 2022:

• Do you have any comments on how 2022 was, or any planned changes for 2023? Our longtime editor Nikki Baird stepped down at the end of 2022. (Thanks for all your hard work, Nikki!) And we are excited to be in the process of hiring a new associate editor starting in 2023.
• What kinds of stories got the best response for the year, and what would you like to see more of? We, and our readers, enjoyed all our sensational stories. :) Please send us more spec fic mashups, steampunk, and magical realism.
• What are your average unique visitors per month? What are your hits per month? For 2022: Our average unique visitors per month were approximately 2000. Our hits per month were approximately 30,000.

Locus is a very good resource for spec fic authors. For more info see https://locusmag.com/.

Show us your story!

We are hard at work on the upcoming fabulous February 2023 issue of Electric Spec. Right now, this hard work consists of reading all the great stories in the slush pile. We have been getting a few stories which are all telling. Telling is when the author narrates the story. In other words, the author uses exposition or summarizes the story. The author doesn't show the story.

Showing is when the author uses descriptions, actions, and dialogue to let the reader experience the story for him or herself. Different markets look for different things. Electric Spec doesn't really publish stories that are all telling. Check out any of our published stories, with showing, to see what I mean!

Good luck showing us your story!