Short fiction anthologies come in many flavors: some contain original fiction and some are comprised of reprints; they can be themed or non-themed; they may restrict themselves to a certain sub-genre of speculative fiction… But one thing they all have in common is that it’s Editors that put them together.
Continuing from Part 1 and Part 2, we asked a handful of Editors the following question:
Q: Can you describe what goes on behind the scenes – from conception to publication — when creating a short fiction anthology?
Read on to see their illuminating responses…
Rich Horton
Rich Horton is the editor of a best of the year anthology series from Prime Books:
The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy; and also a collection of the best online fiction, from Wyrm Publishing,
Unplugged. His reviews and essays appear in
Locus,
Black Gate,
Fantasy Magazine,
SF Site, and many other publications.
My experience to date in anthology editing is rather thinner than that of most of my colleagues, as I have edited only “Best of the Year” collections. That makes my job easier on several grounds. Compared to an original anthologist, I don’t have to commission stories, nor wade through slush, nor work with authors to improve their submissions (either by line editing or by suggesting more dramatic changes). Compared to many reprint anthologists, I don’t have to look through nearly as many stories, and the authors I reprint are likely to be pretty accessible. (I have heard some harrowing stories about difficulties with finding out who controls the estate of dead authors, and also of difficulties working with authors’ heirs with unusual ideas of the market potential for reprinting old short stories.
The story of the conception of my books is simple enough. For many years, as an offshoot of my reviewing work for Locus (and prior to that, Tangent Online), I have prepared a list of the best stories of the year, organizing them (on occasion) as “virtual” best of the year books. A few years ago I had the thought that one market segment that was underrepresented in anthologies of this sort was online fiction. I suggested to Sean Wallace at Prime Books an anthology of the best online fiction of the year. Sean was unsure of the sales potential of such a book, but shortly later he suggested that we simply do a pair of more traditional Best of the Year anthologies: one for Science Fiction, one for Fantasy. (As of this year, those two books have been combined into one – and, happily, I am finally doing a Best Online short fiction book, Unplugged, for Wyrm Publishing.)
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It’s no secret I like George Mann’s Newbury & Hobbes stories, so I’m thrilled to see that Amazon has the cover and synopsis of Mann’s The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes, a collection of short fiction featuring the pair of steampunk-era detectives.
