Category Archives: editing

Some Slushpile Thoughts

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Cat

In reading for Women Destroy Fantasy, I’ve cleared about two hundred stories away so far, and there’s still about a hundred I have yet to read. Some amazing stuff, some familiar names, and all in all, a slush pile that is full enough of solid stories that I could fill several issues. It’s been a great pleasure to be elbow deep in so much excellence. So here’s a few notes on the experience so far.
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Women Destroying Fantasy: What I’ll Be Looking For

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Cat

I was just at a Kristine Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith workshop where people were using the idea of reader “cookies” and “anti-cookies”, things that delight or turn-off a specific editor, increasing or decreasing the appeal of a story when they’re considering it.

So I’ll be open to submissions from March 15 through March 31 for the Women Destroying Fantasy issue. Here are some of my wants and a couple of things that will turn me off.
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Bring Me Back!

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Cat

That’s right. One of the stretch goals for the Women Destroying Science Fiction kickstarter is a special issue where I get the chance to destroy fantasy. AND there’s one for an issue of Nightmare where Ellen Datlow destroys horror.
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Editing: How “Near” Was Arranged and Why

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Cat

I blogged a couple of days ago about arranging stories and my philosophy for such arrangements. I wanted to show those principles in action by looking at the two ToCs for the book Near + Far.

As you may know, the book is divided into two parts, near future stories and far future stories. This allowed us to take advantage of the old Ace double format, where each half is one side of the book. It also meant creating two tables of contents, one for each section.

So here’s the order for the Near section, with some explication:
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Editing: Arranging Stories

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Cat

The always fabulous Jude Marie Green mailed me. Her question, which got me thinking, was: What does an editor do (besides acquire) to make the issue “come together”?

It wasn’t the first time this question’s come up, and I’ve never seen much about it, so I wanted to talk a little about the idea of arranging things. Because an ideal magazine issue or anthology isn’t just a bunch of stories in a box. In theory, at least, the editor has selected stories that resonate with each other and arranged them in a way that’s meaningful. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
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Editing Fiction Collections

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Cat

This month one work item is putting the near-sf and far-sf collections together for e-publication. This morning, I got the near one assembled in a Word doc, made a formatting pass, and added about a third of the afternotes. Here … Continue reading →

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