So another record for reply to a submission:

371 days – that’s a year and six days – that OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show took before passing on ‘The Hushed Voice’, besting my previous longest by 137 days (the previous record holder was 234 days for North of Infinity III, but Mark Leslie bought that story…)

Now, in fairness, the delay was mainly due to the flood of submissions after the magazine opened and the hiring of a new editor, who then had to go through the backlog, so I’m not upset about the delay. I suppose I am kinda bummed that it didn’t make it in, but them’s the breaks.

Edmund Schubert, the IGMS editor, did have some nice things to say in his rejection e-mail, including the fact that the story was among the last 30 or so he held for consideration out of the thousands he had in backlog when he arrived in the job. I don’t know what that is in terms of percentiles (for you LSAT-types out there) but that’s not too shabby. He also said “the reason I kept it as long as I did is because it is as well written as it is; the voice is spot on.” That’s very nice to hear, especially since that is one of the earliest pieces I started sending out to magazines.

Luckily, however, I got the rejection back before the end of February. That means the anthology Holy Horrors is still accepting submissions, and I think this might work for them (‘The Hushed Voice’, for the record, is a dark SF tale in which religion features quite prominently). My submission is going out today.

Likewise, now that IGMS no longer has one of my stories, it’s time to send them a new one! So I’ll be submitting ‘The Great Hymn of the Aten’ to Edmund today, as well. From what I see on the Blackhole, his response rate to new subs seems to be pretty good now that he’s cleared the backlog.

– S.