An abundant assortment

Wow! We are grateful for the abundant assortment of stories we've received for the marvelous May 2023 issue of Electric Spec. Thank you!
Reading slush, we are as busy as bees buzzing spring blooms... Bzzz!

I've been reading so much I do have some tips. These are suggestions.

• Do not start your story with your protag waking up. We get so many of these.
• Do not start your story with several pages of description, aka 'telling.' It slows down the beginning of the story.
• Do not start your story with loud cussing, yelling, screaming, etc. On the first page readers don't care about the characters yet.
• Do not use weird fonts, colors, font sizes, spacing, or any other odd formating. It makes it seem like you don't know standard formats.
• Do use the file type and formatting we request.
• Do grab our attention with your unique character, world, and/or situation. A great way to do this is with voice.
• Do include some speculative fiction element(s).
:)

We still get a few returned emails when an author's email software automatically rejects us. Aw! :(

Next week I'll stalk about the production meeting right here!