State of the Story

Neil Clarke has an editorial over at Clarkesworld Magazine with some new data regarding magazine sales and the overall state of the short fiction industry. As he mentions in the article, this is an update to a similar editorial from last year.

Also at Clarkesworld is an interview with ten SFF magazine editors:
Patrick Neilsen Hayden (Tor.com)
Shawna McCarthy (Realms of Fantasy)
John O'Neill (Black Gate)
Cat Rambo (Fantasy Magazine)
Mike Resnick (Jim Baen's Universe)
Stanley Schmidt (Analog)
Jason Sizemore (Apex Digest)
Gordon Van Gelder (Fantasy & Science Fiction)
Sheila Williams (Asimov's)
Ann Vandermeer (Weird Tales)

That is one powerful lineup and includes most of the largest and most significant publications in the genre today (I'd include Subterranean, Strange Horizons, Electric Velocipede, and LCRW, but that's just quibbling over further inclusion of stuff I like. I can't argue with that lineup).

Good stuff there, if nothing earthshattering.

if i were to edit a zine or anthology - the long list

John Klima's series of articles about starting your own zine got me thinking. Not about actually starting one, because I think I would entirely unsuited to being the overall creator (and I don't have the capital), but about what my dream list would be if I was the editor of a zine or even an anthology. I think I'd be happier as an anthology editor.

Anyway.

Here is my Long List for authors who I would consider for inclusion into my unthemed zine. The only requirement is that they must have actually written and published short fiction. Preferably in the SFF genre, but I'm willing to give some non-genre authors a shot at my hypothetical unthemed speculative zine. Oh, and they should still be alive, otherwise how on earth would they write me a new story? It would also help if I'm familiar with their work (sorry Maureen McHugh). I would pay extremely well, of course, if I had such a zine and the financing.


The Long List:
Stephen King
Mary Robinette Kowal
Rachel Swirsky
John Scalzi
Cat Rambo
Jeff Vandermeer
Joe R. Lansdale
Lucius Shepard
Jay Lake
Mike Resnick
Bruce McAllister
Tim Pratt
Robert Reed
William Shunn
Neil Gaiman
Jhumpa Lahiri
Nell Freudenberger
Joe Hill
Carrie Vaughn
A. B. Goelman
Lori Selke
Alan DeNiro
Elizabeth Bear
Genevieve Valentine
Nicholas Seeley
Charles Stross
Jeffrey Ford
Tobias Buckell
Chris Roberson
George R. R. Martin
Anne McCaffrey
Kelly Link
Connie Willis
Cory Doctorow
Karen Traviss
Kage Baker
Margaret Atwood
Louise Erdrich
Ted Chiang
William Browning Spencer


I am quite sure I'm missing a goodly number of writers, but unless I come up with someone else to add to the list, this is what I'm going to use to pare down the Long List to the Short List. I reserve the right to add an author to the Short List who is not on this Long List.