I once heard a fellow writer say she had an "epic editor." Assuming she didn't mean "the editor of an epic," I like the term. I could probably use epic, as in "heroic" or "grand," to describe some of the magazine and anthology editors I've worked with in the past twenty years. (Well, heroic might be a stretch, but you get my drift. Worked with is also debatable; in many cases they were merely kind enough to publish what I wrote.)
Twenty years, though, is accurate. The first short story I ever submitted was accepted in January 1994, and appeared in
Mystery Time magazine. Editor Linda Hutton is retired now, but she did me a huge favor: she taught me that selling short crime/suspense stories was at least
possible. She enclosed a five-dollar bill in the envelope with the acceptance letter, and I remember staring at it as if I'd been handed the Hope Diamond. I went on to publish something in every issue of
Mystery Time for the next eight years.
Editor indebtedness
Linda was the first of a number of editors I've come in contact with, and they've taught me a lot. Some of them I never knew well, but others became advisors and even friends. And I can honestly say most were professional and fair in their dealings with writers. Here are some editors, in no particular order, who were or have been extremely kind to me:
Margo Power, Murderous Intent
Andrew McAleer, Crimestalker Casebook
Marcia Preston, Byline Magazine
Babs Lakey, Futures
John Hart, Amazon Shorts
Andrew Gulli,
The Strand Magazine
Darlene Poier, Pages of Stories
Tony Burton, Wolfmont Press anthologies
Ginger Johnson, Detective Mystery Stories
Janet Hutchings, EQMM
Sherri Armel, Red Herring Mystery Magazine
Johnene Granger, Woman's World
B. J. Bourg, Mouth Full of Bullets
Charity Bishop, Prairie Times
Philip Levin, Gulf Coast anthologies
Patrick Perry, The Saturday Evening Post
Donna Bowman, Short Stuff for Grown-ups
Sandra Ruttan, Spinetingler Magazine
Joseph DeMarco, Mysterical-E
Andrew Perkins, Grit
Jay Hartman, Untreed Reads
Richard Heagy, Orchard Press Mysteries
Cheri Jung, Over My Dead Body
Marvin Kaye, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine
At least half a dozen of those publications are no longer around, but I'm thinking Rob, Janice, Eve, Herschel, and others might remember them.
Letters from the editors
I was asked not long ago if I'd had any interesting experiences in dealing with magazine editors. I could think of only a few, because I try hard not to annoy editors, and when they tell me to do something I just salute and do it. Here are some unusual things that I do recall:
- A few months after I sold Andy McAleer a story for Crimestalker, he suggested that we collaborate on a mystery short. He wrote the first half and I wrote the second, and he immediately submitted it to AHMM under both our names. It was rejected even more immediately.
- Johnene Granger published two of my mysteries in Woman's World
with someone else's byline. In fact, it was the same name both times: Elizabeth Hawn. In both instances Johnene phoned me afterward to apologize for the error, but since I'd been paid for the stories I didn't mind. I only hope Ms. Hawn, whoever she is, liked them.
- Loren Logsdon, then editor of Eureka Literary Magazine, wrote in an acceptance letter that the ending to the story I'd sent them was "the best she and her staff had seen in years." After publishing it, they rejected everything else I ever sent them.
- Linda Hutton of Mystery Time once asked me to change the expression "he cut his eyes at her" in one of my submissions to her magazine. She said she'd never heard that phrase before and figured readers hadn't either. I just cut my eyes at my wife, changed the sentence to "he gave her a sneaky look," and all was well.
- Andrew Gulli of The Strand once phoned me to ask where I'd gotten the name of the poison I'd used to kill the villain in a story I'd submitted to him (actually, the first story I ever sold to them). I told him I'd made it up. He paused for what I thought was a frighteningly long time, then said, "Okay."
- The late Cathleen Jordan, the editor of AHMM
before Linda Landrigan, once published three of my stories in a period of four months (the March, May, and June 1999 issues). After celebrating--and telling myself that maybe I'd found the goose that laid the golden egg--I received at least a dozen AH rejections in a row.
- Last year I received a contract by mistake from Janet Hutchings at EQMM for something someone else had written. Unlike many of my SleuthSayers colleagues, I usually receive only rejections from EQ, so it was especially hard to make myself confess to her that I was not the lucky (and deserving) party.
For the writers among us, what are some of your experiences with editors, agents, publishers, etc.? Have you found most of them to be pleasant? Knowledgable? Accessible? Demanding? Who are/were some of your favorites?
Your wish is my command . . .
Anytime I get into a discussion like this, I'm reminded of the old saying, "Most editors are failed writers--but then again, so are most writers." I love that quote. I think it's also a reminder that editors and other head freds in the publishing world, revered though they might be, are just regular people like you and me. They have their own preferences, faults, and pet peeves.
And as long as they guard the gates that I'm trying to pass through, I will indeed salute, click my heels, and do what they tell me.
