Magazines That Want (More) Diversity

I often talk about the need for markets and their editors/publishers to do more to up the diversity in their slush pile and, consequently, in the publication itself. And one of the steps toward doing so is making sure that people know about your intentions in that direction. It does help to make the statement outright, but you still must back that statement up with results. Editors sometimes ask me how they get the word out, and, as I said in my Mind Meld contribution the other week, one of the ways is writer to writer to writer. Since I’m a writer whose blog is read by other writers, I guess I should do my part. :)

I recently sent this list of magazines looking for more POC authors and stories with POC characters and non-standard cultures/settings/etc to the Carl Brandon mailing list. I know that the editors of these markets want more because they told me so (which is as good an indication as any).

Fantasy — Any magazine I’m involved with definitely cares about this issue. One would hope it goes without saying, but not everyone is aware of who works for what and the goings on behind the scenes.

Sybil’s Garage — Before the last reading period, Matt Kressel and I had several discussions about how to draw in more diverse submissions. We edited the guidelines to make that desire clearer and I encouraged authors I knew to apply. I believe the next submission period is in early August, so keep an eye out and, yes, send your stuff in. Matt also says not to make any pre-judgments on what a Sybil’s Garage-type story is.

PodCastle — Rachel Swirsky is definitely on the look out for great stories by POC authors. I gave her some names and stories to check out, but you increase your own chances by submitting. PodCastle, like EscapePod, takes reprints. And it doesn’t matter how long ago the story was published, just so long as it’s good (and fantasy — for SF stuff, submit to EscapePod).

Asimov’s — Sheila Williams has mentioned to me a couple of times that she’d like to see more women in her slush (particularly with SF stories) and I suspect that she could use more submissions from POC and/or with POC characters and under-represented cultures.

As always, none of these markets is likely to publish a story just because it’s written by a POC or has POC characters. But in order to have a chance, you need to send the story in!

There are probably markets that I’m missing or editors who want more diversity but haven’t mentioned it to me. If so, mention it in the comments. I’ll add it to the main post as we go along.

Other markets looking to increase diversity (as indicated in the comments):

• Electric Velocipede
• Clarkesworld Magazine
• Strange Horizons
• Lone Star Stories
• Interfictions 2
• Southern Fried Weirdness
• Dog Versus Sandwich
• Ideomancer
• Weird Tales

Submitting Strategy

Earlier this week I wrote a post about how Asimov’s, under Sheila Williams, has published more women this year (so far) than F&SF or Analog by a significant amount.  I mentioned this for several reasons, though probably not the one people think.  Though some people grokked my main reason, which was to make people (scratch) women aware of the markets they might deem “friendly” to them or their stories or the kind of stories they like to write.

Over and over I hear that women and men, in general, have different submitting strategies.  And that women, mostly, will stop sending stories to markets where they are sure that their stories have no chance.  In some ways, this is a good strategy.  It keeps one from sending stories about pretty, pretty princesses to Clarkesworld and gory horror stories to Realms of Fantasy. But then one runs the risk of rejecting the story for the editor, which doesn’t do anyone any good.  Finding a sensible balance between those two extremes is, well, sensible. But a key element in finding that balance is good information about a market.

If the common knowledge floating around is that this or that market doesn’t like girl stories or whatever, there’s a chance that people who write girl stories won’t send there. But if a market changes, or is looking to change, how is that common knowledge amended?  Though people pointing it out, talking about it, encouraging writers to update what they think they know.

More than once recently I’ve heard someone write Asimov’s off because of stuff that happened or stuff they read 5 or more years ago.  That was before the current editor.  Things have changed since then.  Things that matter to writers (like that goddamned form rejection we hated).  And one of those changes is the percentage of women in the magazine.  Maybe pointing this out will encourage women writers to pick up a few issues, read them, and submit themselves.  The more good writers in the slushpile, the more good stories in the magazine.  It follows.

Ann Vandermeer posted an interesting comment to Jeff’s response to my post:

Just a FYI. Opened up my WT submissions email account this morning. 25 new submissions. 22 from men, 3 from women. This is the typical submissions ratio I receive for Weird Tales (this is just from overnight - I’ll get more in during the day….)

Weird Tales is another example of a magazine that has gone through changes (major changes, in fact) and may still suffer from wrong “common knowledge” about what kind of stories they publish and that they’re more interested in what men write than what women write.  Now, I don’t know Ann, and I’ve only read one issue with her picks so far, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that she probably isn’t more interested in the stories that men write.  What she is interested in is up to her to show us as the magazine continues.  But if I were a writer (oh, I am), and also a woman (batting 2 for 2 here), I would definitely get right on sending her appropriate stories and not automatically assuming that she doesn’t want my fiction.  There are an awful lot of men who are doing this thing.  And it would please me above anything to have really strong female writers making their mark on that slushpile, amongst others.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Due to some stuff on the Internets, I did some research (omg) on the # of women writers in the three digests so far this year.  The results of this, and my thoughts on the magazine that came out on top (Asimov’s), are over at the FSFBlog today.

Sean Wallace informs me that last year Fantasy published 83% women.  And, if you don’t remember, when certain types of people noticed this (I’ll leave it to you to determine what types of people those were), there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth and cries of “Oh, it’s so sad that Fantasy magazine doesn’t care about me and my stories”, and other such goings on. (cue tiny violin.)