When Slush Reading is Worth It

The life of a slush editor can be trying. It's hard to understate the amount of terrible, terrible stories you get. There are some that are just banal, but others that are downright disturbing. I mean, there's frequently a point where you get to the fourth spousal abuse/killing/revenge story in a row, and you start to wonder about a career in marital counseling, because clearly there's a big need there.

 But there are also those amazing moments, the ones you keep reading for. Where you lift your head from where it's rested dejectedly in your palm, and remove your hovering mouse from the 'reject' button. Where you forget you're an editor and become an entranced reader again. It's happened to me only a very few times. Even fewer were the stories that struck me so deeply that I can clearly recall the first time I read them. It happened for Brass Canaries. And for Seed. And it happened once while I was reading slush for Clockwork Phoenix 4, a story by Benjanun Sriduangkaew called "The Bees Her Heart, the Hive Her Belly."

 

I remember being entranced, completely lost in the story – particularly rare because I've never been a huge fan of sci-fi. But it's hard for me not to love a story about a woman with a heart full of bees (literally). And it's worth noting that this was the ONLY non-solicited story that Mike picked to publish in Clockwork Phoenix 4.

 This is one of my favorite passages:

"She went to have her chest cut open and a small metal lattice installed between her breasts. When the bees became too much, she would open that little gate and let them out in a cascade of corpses and restless workers. The living ones always returned to Sennyi-as-hive, for they were creatures of habit. They drove her to eat voraciously and she developed a private memory. It jolted her to have a cerebral partition that could not be edited by anyone but herself. Still, what had already been forgotten couldn’t be brought back." 

Since CWP4 was published, I've followed the reviews, and in almost every one, they call out this story as one of the best. It gives me a sense of pride, even though my only real accomplishment was to put the "pass forward" label on instead of the "reject." Which, given that I think anyone could have seen how amazing this story was, really isn't much. But it's great all the same.

 Besides Clockwork Phoenix 4, Benjanun has been published in Clarkesworld (three times!), Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Giganotosaurus, and reprinted in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year vol. 8 (the above story, as it happens), among others. And then, a few weeks ago, I was really excited to learn that Benjanun had been nominated for the John Campbell award for best new writer!! It's very well-deserved.

 You can read "The Bees Her Heart, the Hive Her Belly" here. I would call it R-rated; it doesn't have anything truly graphic, but it does have mentions of sex and so forth. But if you can handle the mentions, it's truly fascinating. I adore the ending. And you can see a list of Benjanun's stories at her website here. I'm excited to see where she goes next.

Slush reading, long form

I’ve already told you about how much I love Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform that allows independent writers, designers, artists, chefs (and the occasional film star) to fund passion projects. I really need to do a better job of keeping up with the publishing area of Kickstarter, because there are a lot of authors and publishers putting out really awesome projects (whether or not crowdfunding is the best route to publication is a whole other question we won’t talk about tonight).

Almost a year ago now (how time flies!), I noticed that editor Mike Allen had put up a campaign to fund his next Clockwork Phoenix anthology. I have wanted to be published in Clockwork Phoenix for ages, ever since I heard that Tannith Lee always contributes, and especially after I read the description of the anthology on Duotrope:

“Clockwork Phoenix is a home for stories that sidestep expectations in beautiful and unsettling ways, that surprise with their settings and startle with the ways they cross genre boundaries, that aren't afraid to experiment with storytelling techniques. But experimentation is not a requirement: the stories in the anthology must be more than gimmicks, and should appeal to genuine emotions, suspense, fear, sorrow, delight, wonder… bring something new and genuine to the equation, whether it's a touch of literary erudition, playful whimsy, extravagant style, or mind-blowing philosophical speculation and insight. Though stories can be set in this world, settings at least a hair or more askew are preferred. I hope to see prose that is poetic but not opaque. I hope to see stories that will lead the reader into unfamiliar territory, there to find shock and delight.”

 That’s the kind of thing I want to write! But alas, nothing I had written at the time was right for the anthology. I went ahead and pledged to the Kickstarter anyway, so I could read the new volume when it came out. The campaign got over twice its goal, and every so often, we as the bakers would receive updates about the project.

And then came one email with the casual line, “And I’m going to need to find from slush readers.”

I immediately perked up at that. I’m a slush reader. I know how to slush. But I’ve only ever read stories 1,000 words or shorter, and I’d always wanted to read longer stories, but I certainly didn’t want to commit to reading for two magazines full-time. An anthology with a limited submission period, however……

I sent Mike an email, and amazingly enough, he told me he’d be happy to have me as one of two slush readers.

It was really, really, really fun. The setup was very different to what I’m used to at FFO. I did decline to read any flash-length stories to avoid conflict of interest. And, of course, I learned a few things along the way.

1) There IS such at thing as spending too much time on the computer

This might seem blindingly obvious. However, I’m a homebody and am computer-oriented by nature. I write scientific documents for work. When I get home, I surf the internet, and later at night I read FFO slush on the computer, and try to work on my writing as much as possible.

In general, I should probably spend more time in the fresh air (that’s what gardening is for!) but I’ve never actually dreaded picking up the laptop before.  It was very odd, given all the above activities that I do on the internet on a constant basis.  Luckily, I have since recovered (let’s never fight again, laptop!”

2) Slush really is the same, regardless of story length.

 I always had this vague idea in my head that reading longer stories would be somehow different than reading flash-length fiction. It really wasn’t. I don’t even recall being annoyed by how long some stories were – it was pretty easy to tell right away which stories were quality and which were not appropriate for the magazine, or were not up to the quality standards of the anthology.

3) But the stories were very different

The one thing about flash is that it's not a length that works well for everyone. Neither is short story length, to be fair (I personally favor novelette length in my writing), but the field of people who can accomplish short story form is much broader. Plus, this project is proof positive that a cool anthology attracts cool stories. There wasn't room in the anthology for all of them, alas, but it was inspiring to read so much good fiction. For example, see "The Bees Her Heart, The Hive Her Belly" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew, one of the stories that did make it into the anthology, which features gorgeous prose and fantastic worldbuilding.

Clockwork Phoenix will be available for purchase in July, and is now available for pre-order at www.clockworkphoenix.com. Reviews are here, here and here.  And if you like what you've read about Mike's projects, he has a new Kickstarter for a short fiction magazine called Mythic Delirium. Check it out!