How Fablecroft Publishing Selects Short Stories

My children asked Hubbie and I the other day, what we’d like to be when we ‘grow up’. After clarification, they rephrased their question to mean ‘more grown up’. For Hubbie, his goal was to focus on his photography. (It is awesome.) For me, it was to put together an anthology where I got to choose which short stories to include. Or so I thought…

Recently an editor-friend shared his editorial selection process on Facebook. Now I’m not so sure! It looked… really hard. So I thought I’d find out more, by asking some short story editors how they put together collections – be it for an anthology or a magazine edition. In the following weeks, I’ll be interviewing the editors of Fablecroft, Ticonderoga, CSFG, Aurealis and Midnight Echo.

First up, here’s what Fablecroft editor-extraordinaire Tehani Wessely told me about her process…

Firstly, some stats:

“The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories” by Joanne Anderton

The title of your latest project: “The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories” by Joanne Anderton, and “One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries”.

Its release date: both books are released on April 26, 2013

Published: print and ebook

One-sentence description: the best of Joanne’s horror and science fiction stories in one great collection (plus two new ones!); and 16 stories exploring discovery and what can come from the smallest of steps.

Great! Now let’s get stuck in…

1. What’s the hardest part of putting together a short story collection, be it for a magazine edition or an anthology?

The rejections. I know how hard authors work writing the stories, and I hate having to say no, especially when I do like the story but it’s not quite right for some reason.

2. What’s the easiest part of that process?

Being the very first person to have the opportunity to read the awesome stories!

3. What’s the most emotional part (and which emotion)?

Getting an excited reply from an accepted author is always lovely, and sending it off to the printer is a wonderful feeling of relief and anticipation.

4. Often editors have a vision for their collection, so select stories that support that vision. Do you ever worry that readers won’t ‘get’ your vision once it’s presented to them and, if so, how do you cope with that worry?

It’s honestly never crossed my mind!

“One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries”
edited by Tehani Wessely

5. Do you read stories blind, or know which author wrote each story as you read? Why do you prefer that method?

As I control my own slush, I do know which authors write each story. When I was with Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine though, we read slush blind, and I think that was a really interesting exercise in putting aside your expectations. That said, the best authors are those who surprise you with every story!

6. Once you’ve selected your favourite stories, how do you put them in order – by theme, by author, to develop a given theme…?

I don’t really have a hard and fast rule – I do try to mix up shorter and longer pieces, and I try to separate stories with similar settings or themes, but it’s a little bit random at times.

7. Have you ever rejected a story that then went on to achieve greatness elsewhere? If so, what did you think about that, and did you alter your processes to avoid it happening again?

I know I’ve seen stories I’ve rejected in other publications, but that’s good for the author! Usually those are stories I’ve rejected not on quality but because it hasn’t fit with the anthology theme, or because I already had a similar story, or reasons to do with the anthology itself, rather than the story at hand.

FableCroft Publishing is a boutique press dedicated to the future of speculative fiction in Australia.

8. How often do you second-guess your judgment?

I’m not sure I do, really. A couple of times I’ve bowed to author preference on an editorial suggestion only to have reviewers and readers specifically note they would have preferred it another way (ie: the way I wanted!) and I wished I’d tried harder for the change. But that’s rare, and a difficult call to make.

9. If you had just one piece of advice for writers submitting to you, what would it be (apart from to follow your guidelines)?

Please read some of what I’ve already published – it will help you know if the sort of story you write is generally the sort of thing I publish!

10. If you had just one piece of advice for editors thinking about putting together a short story collection, what would it be?

Complete your slush reading before you accept your table of contents. Ask to hold on to stories if you like them, but don’t accept them until you have a complete book, because sometimes you need to make tough choices on selections which are made harder if you accept too many too early.

Tehani Wessely

Thank you Tehani! What a great start to this series. I wonder how other editors will respond to the same set of questions…!

What about you readers – any questions for Tehani about how she chooses short stories for her collections?