Officially speaking, there are 18 authors I've fished out of the slush and helped publish in Realms of Fantasy.  18 slush survivors=18 success stories, right?

Not really.  The number is actually higher than this.  Sometimes I'll work with an author on a rewrite, pass the story along to Shawna, and she'll reject it.  This doesn't automatically mean the story fails to find a home.  Case in point, I present to you "Sea Child" by Aliette de Bodard, which just received some nice recognition after being published a while back in Coyote Wild.  There have also been some stories I've personally rejected, and the appreciative authors have later told me that the feedback I provided helped them publish the story elsewhere.  There are also stories I've passed along to Shawna without working with the authors on rewrites, and some of them also found nice homes after being rejected.

Just because these stories publish somewhere else doesn't mean I'm not proud of them and their authors.  And when the authors express appreciation to me, as they often do, it means that much more to me.  Such stories may not appear in ROF, but they're still a part of me.

So to Aliette and my other secret slush survivors, I salute you!