Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Change, The Only Constant

Please join me in welcoming our two new Associate Editors, Doug Murano and Jodi Lee. Doug has had two stories accepted by NT, the second time winning the Editor's Pick in issue #11, coming out this July and a solid editing background. Jodi Lee is well known in the industry as a writer and editor. She has been published twice in NT and has several years experience working for other markets until she launched New Bedlam in 2009 and Belfire Press in 2010. We are fortunate to have them both as NT Staph. Thanks to everyone that applied.

John Wilson has been the Technical Editor for NT since Issue # 3, back in 2008. In 2009, John picked up the additional duty as Associate Editor. Much of the reason for NT's success is due to John, and he will be sorely missed. John is taking a hiatus, but he is forever Staph and will hopefully be able to come back at some point in the future.

Daniel I Russell joined NT in 2009 with a solid background in editing, having worked on the magazine Dred for two years. His story, "Blood Pit", appeared in NT #1 and he also had a story in NT's first anthology, Malpractice. Daniel will continue in his role as Associate Editor and also pick up the additional duty of Technical Editor.

John took on the role of Editor-In-Chief for issue # 11, and Daniel is currently doing the same for issue #12. I took on the role of Associate Editor and of course deal with the mundane Publisher duties. Unlike some magazines, even as Editor-In-Chief, all of us read an equal number of submissions. Many magazines have what they call "Slush Readers". I dislike the term "Slush" and have said so in a previous NT rant, but my point is that the initial readers often do a lot of heavy lifting and float up the cream to the editors, who only read the short list to make final decisions. These readers rarely if ever get any credit. Since we give personal feedback instead of form rejection letters, we need to be able to articulate why we reject a story. It's a team effort, and everyone has a voice. Each of the Staph read the same number of stories and come up with a short list. The short lists are combined and everyone takes another week or so to read the other's lists. We then meet as a team and decide which stories make it into the issue. The additional duties for the Editor-In-Chief include making final decisions for the Table of Contents if there are disagreements and writing all of the non-fiction pieces.

I felt that my nonfiction pieces were getting stale and it was time for a change. I'm glad John and Daniel wanted the opportunity and I believe both of them found it to be a valuable experience. I will take back the reins for the next submission period in July, which will be used to fill issue #13, due out in January 2011. 13 issues are more than most small press magazine ever achieve, regardless of genre. We aren’t quite there yet, so I have no desire to jinx it, but I couldn't have reached issue #10 without the help of a lot of people, but most of all there would be no NT without Dan Barter. He was there from the beginning as we brainstormed on format and content. He built our website and still updates and maintains it. He did all of the art for the first several issue and the cover art for the first 7 issues. He does the entire layout for each issue and I don’t know what I would do without him, yet most people only know him as Remo, a name in the credits. We've been best friends since the 7th grade and while I've mentioned his contributions before, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank him for all he has done and will continue to do.

This is an exciting time in small press horror. There are so many talented people creating more stories than there are markets. Thank you for supporting NT and through us, the writers.