Editor's Note
Hey Kids,
Summer is coming and here at the asylum things are hopping. Submissions have been fast and fabulous: my thanks to all the authors who have sent work my way, and a special thanks, of course, to those whose works fill the June issue. I am always grateful for the good that comes my way, and am proud—ridiculously so, I suppose, for who am I to take credit for it?—to be able to share it.
Someone asked me recently what I look for in a story. I gave them the kind of vague, dull-witted answer that in a fair world would be known as a Billy Burger. The brutal truth is I have no freaking idea what I’m looking for. Aside from a few editorial bromides (be original, proofread) and generic concerns (gosh I have a lot of horror right now, I could really use a good western), I'm mostly just happy when I receive a story that blows my doors off. If you want to know why one rang the bell while the previous ten perfectly good stories did not, well… honestly, you're looking for a reader with more reflective power than I.
I guess what I can tell you is that the stories I pick do things to me. Sometimes they make me laugh. Sometimes they make me sad. Sometimes they fill me with curiosity or horror or wonder...or maybe, joy of joys, some playful combination of all of the above. They make me look at our world and the people in it differently. I suppose that’s what I'm looking for as a reader: that unexpected feeling, that twisted perspective, that transformed insight. I suspect maybe all of us–writers, readers, editors–are always looking for those things in our stories.
I hope you find them here.
Never stop,
Billy
Summer is coming and here at the asylum things are hopping. Submissions have been fast and fabulous: my thanks to all the authors who have sent work my way, and a special thanks, of course, to those whose works fill the June issue. I am always grateful for the good that comes my way, and am proud—ridiculously so, I suppose, for who am I to take credit for it?—to be able to share it.
Someone asked me recently what I look for in a story. I gave them the kind of vague, dull-witted answer that in a fair world would be known as a Billy Burger. The brutal truth is I have no freaking idea what I’m looking for. Aside from a few editorial bromides (be original, proofread) and generic concerns (gosh I have a lot of horror right now, I could really use a good western), I'm mostly just happy when I receive a story that blows my doors off. If you want to know why one rang the bell while the previous ten perfectly good stories did not, well… honestly, you're looking for a reader with more reflective power than I.
I guess what I can tell you is that the stories I pick do things to me. Sometimes they make me laugh. Sometimes they make me sad. Sometimes they fill me with curiosity or horror or wonder...or maybe, joy of joys, some playful combination of all of the above. They make me look at our world and the people in it differently. I suppose that’s what I'm looking for as a reader: that unexpected feeling, that twisted perspective, that transformed insight. I suspect maybe all of us–writers, readers, editors–are always looking for those things in our stories.
I hope you find them here.
Never stop,
Billy