How to Find Out What Editors of Online Journals Like

I love the Million Writers Award for many reasons, but one great reason to pay attention to the nominations might not be obvious to all. Over at this page, the editors of dozens of online journals have posted links to what they believe to be the three best stories they published in 2009. You can’t buy a resource that good. Not only is it a great place to find out about online journals and see if you like what they publish, you can get a pretty good sense of what the editors are looking for and what they’re proud of.

I also find it interesting to gain insights into related magazines. Some writers have been nominated by several different editors. So, if you like the work of X writer and think yours is similar, this might give some clues as to where you should be sending your own writing.

Jason Sanford says this year there have been more nominations than ever before. My observation is that there are everything from very obscure niche publications (Stymie, a magazine that until recently was devoted entirely to literary stories about golf) to professional speculative fiction markets such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Every writer should have the page I linked above bookmarked.

Interviews With Editors

Jason Sanford points to a piece in Clarkesworld that contains interviews with 10 editors of major SF and fantasy publications. Required reading.

A Thousand Faces

Surfing tonight, I discovered a very cool literary journal called A Thousand Faces. They say they look for character-driven pieces that rise about the usual superhero genre technique of making stories as a framework on which to hang a fight scene. They also have an interesting revenue sharing model that they use to pay writers.

Anyway, so far I’m very impressed with the quality of fiction there. As an example, check out Michael Obilade’s “Matchstick.” I was completely won over by the first line:

In the eleventh grade my brother fell in love with a girl made of fire.

The story plays with something that I think is a common theme in superhero stories: the girl’s superpowers make it hard for her to be around people in a normal way. However, in this case, that’s really the focus of the story, and the result is an odd and moving work:

I didn’t know much about Josie, except that she was made of fire, and my brother loved her. I wasn’t even sure of these. She didn’t go to this school – no one knew her – which meant she was either home-schooled, or from another town. We spoke briefly. She said she was sixteen, like Dural, but she looked like she still belonged in junior high. My brother wasn’t evasive about many things, but he was doggedly secretive when it came to her. The only conversation I ever had with him about her occurred on a morning when I caught him peeling blisters off his hands in the backyard. I sat beside him, and stared at the sun, pale white in a blue sky.

This story was a breath of fresh air to me, after an evening of wandering around the Internet not being too excited by what I found. I’m really glad to have discovered A Thousand Faces, and am looking forward to seeing more of what they have to offer.