Feel My Pain

Being an editor is never easy, alas. Weep for me. I just rejected a bunch of good stories that have been lingering in my "Read Again" file for a while. Many of these are stories that, if I had more than 13 slots to fill, I'd gladly have published.

Now for the real torture. I still have 13 stories in my Read Again file that I have read again and again. But there are only nine slots remaining. All of these 13 stories are powerful stories, kick you in the butt and the gut stories, wake you up in the middle of the night stories, make you laugh your scorched ass off stories. And I'm going to have to reject some of them. And while I'm deliberating, I'm sure more really good stories are going to come in.

What these means for you, dear writer, is that time is getting short. I'm going to pick one of these thirteen stories today, which means that there will only be eight story slots left. If you have a story that you've been hanging onto, waiting for whatever, you'd better go ahead and send it now. The window of opportunity is closing.

What this means for you, dear reader, is that the quality of the stories in Postcards from Hell: The First Thirteen is going to be beyond what you could reasonably expect to receive for the tiny sum of $6.66. They are already beyond what I expected to receive. So be sure to purchase a subscription, because you really, really don't want to miss these stories. I expect this brief run to become a legendary event in the annals of genre publishing.

I shit you not.

And what this means for your dear editor is that he has the torturous pleasure of having to sift through some really first rate stories to choose the best of the best of the best. He couldn't be happier. An editor's dream come true.

Update:

As promised, the fifth story in the series has now been accepted for publication - "The Cabinet of Dr. Calamari." German expressionism as performed by the Batley Townswomen's Guild.

We are pleased to welcome its author, Andrew Ferguson, to our little corner of the nether regions. Andrew lives with his wife and daughter in Fife, Scotland, a backwoodsy kind of place where the coal dust in the water means the folks don't think so straight any more. He has published a variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry in various places in the UK and US, most recently in On Our Way to Battle (Carnyx Press) and The Shantytown Anomaly. Further details about him can be found in the 'Comrades' section at www.writers-bloc.org.uk.