The UFG2 Slush Pile Chronicles, pt 1

As many of you know, I’m reading for a new anthology.  A few of the manuscripts for the anth were solicited; I talked to a couple of authors I know, and they sent me some manuscripts, and I accepted them.  The slush pile used to be where editors stacked all the unsolicited manuscripts.  Now the slush pile is notional, even virtual, but it is still a place that combines horror and wonder in equal measures.

I see calls for submissions that include absurdly precise guidelines for formatting manuscripts, with details about margins and spacing, which font to use, with a firm reminder that manuscripts will be rejected for not following the rules.  If you follow an editor over time, sometimes you see the guidelines get tighter and tighter (I hear this happened to the editor who had charge of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s fan anthologies). They do this because their brains have been eaten by the horror of more and more manuscripts that don’t follow the most basic instructions, so they can have a reason for tossing manuscripts unread.  It’s hard not to take it personally after the 300th manuscript written in crayon.  These editors have had their brains eaten by the horror of slush.

I get the impression that once editors have a sufficient Rolodex (in the virtual sense these days), some of them stops putting out slush calls entirely and only publishes solicited manuscripts.  They are cowards.

The wonder of the slush pile is finding someone or something completely new.

I hope my brain never gets eaten, because the slush pile has given me new authors, plots I’ve never seen before, and stories that soak my undies starting at the first paragraph.