So the other day I posted about slush survivor Ken Scholes' RoF story being picked up for Best New Fantasy 2 from Prime Books, edited by Sean Wallace.  Well, through the blogosphere I've just learned about another pair of RoF stories that will be in this reprint anthology:

"Lost Wax" by Leah Bobet

and another slush survivor of mine, "Snake Charmer" by Amanda Downum

Congrats, ladies!

Okay,

So it was a crazy fun weekend.  Before the Nebulas on Friday, I started off with a Thursday late-night appetizer, in the form of Spidey 3.  The fight scenes were absolutely amazing.  Off the charts.  But the writing was abysmal.  I can't believe this was the best story they could come up with.  To quote the immortal words of Moe Sizlak from The Simpsons: "I'm choking on my own rage."

Anyway, on to the Nebulas.   I was scheduled to  do a panel on Friday  at 1, dealing with workshops.  Unfortunately, I missed my train.  The next train to take me to NYC didn't show up until 30 minutes later, so when it was all said and done I literally sat down in my chair at the panel about 5 seconds before the panel stared.  Talk about your buzzer beaters!  Anyway, I spoke about my experiences attending the Odyssey Fantasy & Science Fiction Writing Workshop, and also Orson Scott Card's Literary Bootcamp.   All the major workshops had at least one representative. I ran into a few Odysseans for the first time, and saw a few I run into at the cons fairly regularly, including Elaine Isaak, Thomas Seay, and my old Odyssean classmate (and a Nebula Nominee this year), Theodora Goss.  Also participating in this panel was author Nancy Kress, talking about her experiences as an instructor at Clarion.  This is definitely the biggest name I've ever shared a panel with, so this was cool.  Also, toward the end of the panel, I made a comment about when you attend these workshops it's important to listen to everything the instructors have to say, but this doesn't necessarily mean you should approach writing exactly the way the instructors say you should, because everyone must discover their own method when it comes to writing.  And it was definitely cool when Nancy Kress agreed with me. :)

After this, the only other commitment I had at the Nebulas was the banquet itself.  So I spent the rest of the weekend hanging out.  Much time was spent with a couple members of my con posse, including John Joseph Adams & Andrea Kail.  My agent, Jenny Rappaport, also made sporadic appearances throughout the weekend.  Met another client of hers too, Dave Williams, and this dude was too cool.  Thanks for introducing me to him, Jenny. 

And there were just so many other people there, more than I can list, and definitely more than I can remember.  It wasn't a huge event, with only a few hundred people being in attendance, but so many of the guests were industry professionals, which always make these events way more fun.  It was great running into folks I know again, such Bill Shunn, Bob Howe, Jae Brim, Rick Bowes, Chris Barzak, Tobias Buckell, Jeff Ford, Rhodi Hawk, and it was also great meeting some folks that until now I've only known online, such as Paul Melko (who kept making people eat his cheese fries instead of mine--damn you, Paul, I also had to deal with the chicken wings!) & Jack Skillingstead.  Also met a bunch of editors for the first time, which is always fun, because then we get to talk "shop."  I'm really doing a very poor job of conveying how much fun it was hanging out with all these fine folks, and I feel terrible because there were so many great people I met or saw again that I just know I'm forgetting about.  Alas.

Anyway, the banquet was cool, although too long.  We started eating around 8 or so, and the whole shindig didn't wrap up until midnight.  Still I had a lot of fun just hanging out and talking with the folks at my table: Realms of Fantasy's beloved editor, Shawna McCarthy, her husband, artist & soon-to-be novelist with Tor, Wayne Barlow, my posse member Andrea Kail, author David Levine (another person it was nice to finally meet), Peter & Kathy David, Judith Tabron (an author whose work I recently passed along to Shawna--she also happens to live in the same town as me), and Kathryn Yule.  Hope I remembered everyone.

Realms had one nominee up for a Nebula this year, Christopher Barzak, for his beautiful novelette, "The Language of Moths."  Alas, Chris didn't take home the Nebula, but I still have all the respect in the world for his story.  Great job, Chris.  To those who are curious, here are this year's winners:

Best Novel--Seeker by Jack McDevitt

Best Novella--"Burn" by James Patrick Kelly

Best Novelette--"Two Hearts" by Peter S. Beagle

Best Short Story--"Echo" by Elizabeth Hand

Best Script--Howl's Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki, Cindy Davis Hewitt, and Donald H. Hewitt (Based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones.)

Andre Norton Award (for YA novels)--Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier

So those were the winners.  As to the Robot Wars ...

Each chair at the banquet had a few goodies waiting on it, including a very cool foam robot.  Once the Nebulas were over, I spent a while trying to procure a second robot.   I wanted two, so I could play robot wars at home. :)  It seemed hopeless, until my man Raj parted with his.  Thanks, Raj!  It's all about the Robot Wars.

As to the Human Wars ...

After the banquet I hung out about another hour before I reluctantly left to catch my train.  Now when you catch a train at Penn Station on Saturday night/Sunday morning, about 75-80% of the people are drunk teenagers & 20-somethings coming back to Long Island.  This night was no exception.  As you might expect, people can get pretty loud.  On this particular night people happened to get a little rowdy too.  On the train car behind mine a bunch of drunken idiots got into a fistfight.  I was able to see everything from safety, and it wasn't pretty.  Screaming, shoving, fists ...you get the idea.  It got so bad the train stopped and the police hauled off around seven people.  Some interesting entertainment, although it did make me get home about twenty minutes later than I should have.  Given this, I would've preferred uneventful.

Whatever.  Next con for me: Readercon in July.

To any moms reading this, Happy Mother's Day.

End of report.

So May 10th marked my second anniversary as assistant editor at Realms of Fantasy.  Wow.  As I did last year, I will now post all sorts statistics that authors may evaluate, ignore, decry, or applaud:


1) Total # of Stories and Pieces of Miscellanea Processed: 1757

2) Total # of Stories Passed up the Editorial Ladder: 194

3) Total # of Automatic Passes: 144

4) Total # of Slush Survivors: 49

5) Total # of Stories Accepted for Publication: 34

6) Total # of Automatic Passes Accepted for Publication: 29

7) Total # of Slush Survivors Accepted for Publication: 5

8) Total # of Rejections (from either me or Shawna): 1723

10) Total # of YFOPS (from either me or Shawna): 222 62 (meaning my guess from last year was way too generous--probably more like 100)

11) Estimated total # of BFODS: 1625 (if the #s don't completely jive here, I'm trying to account for the miscellaneous items I must deal with in the slush)

12) Average # of submissions per month: About 146 135

13) # of submissions/miscellanea per batch: 251

A few things to keep in mind regarding these numbers:

First, this encompasses submissions from 4/12/06-4/05/07.  Shawna and I meet in NYC every 4-6 weeks to do a slush transfer.  The stuff ranging back to 4/12/06 is a batch containing stories that were also received after my 5/10 anniversary mark.  It was easier for me to just lump this whole batch together in crunching the numbers.

Also, there are automatic passes & slush survivors in Shawna's possession from two batches ago she has yet to make a decision on.  There is also a batch of slush survivors & automatic passes I'll soon be passing along to her.  I've figured these numbers in my totals, but obviously there is no way of reporting how many of these stories will be accepted for publication, and how many will be rejected.

Also, if you compare these statistics with those I posted last year,  a few things  are interesting to note.  First, because I got us caught up on our backlog, we didn't have nearly as many submissions in total, about a difference of 465 stories.  And yet many of the other statistics are comparable.  I actually passed along two more slush survivors this time around, although I had four fewer see publication. :(  Shawna only took one less story for publication in total, but took 3 more automatic passes for publication.  Factor in the limbo batches and Shawna will buy even more automatic passes, and I may snag a few extra slush survivors.  Even the total amount of stories passed up the editorial ladder is only 4 fewer this time around.

All this, and yet we averaged about 40 50 fewer stories a month.  So what does this mean?  Honestly, I think this shows our improved response times have led to some of the better writers out there submitting to us on a more regular basis.  The overall quality of the stories being passed along to Shawna is stronger as a result.  Sure, I could be wrong about this, but I don't think so.  465 less stories is a big difference, and the last time Shawna did a round of  story buying, she took a lot of stories ...13 total, the most she's bought in one round since I've been here.  Usually she buys somewhere between 4-7.  This is a testament to the quality of the work being sent to us, and call me crazy, but I do believe improved response times factor into this.

Anyway, make of these results what you will.

Let Year 3 begin!