I will be editing Tesseracts Twelve, which is now open to submissions.
For full guidelines, see lostpages.net/t12.
This will be a special edition of Tesseracts devoted to longer stories, from 10 000 to 20 000 words.
Go ahead, amaze me!
Please use this thread for all queries.
Claude Lalumière
Objects of Worship
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Anthologies with short fiction by Claude Lalumière
- Intracities (The Lost and Found of Years)
- Mythspring (This Is the Ice Age)
- Tesseracts Eleven (The Object of Worship)
- Tesseracts Nine (Being Here)
- The Best of SDO (A Visit to the Optometrist)
- The Book of More Flesh (The Ethical Treatment of Meat)
- The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 4 (Dregs)
- The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 5 (Secretly Wishing for Rain)
- The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 6 (Different Flesh)
- The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 7 (The Four Elements)
- Year's Best Fantasy 6 (Being Here)
- Year's Best SF 12 (This Is the Ice Age)
43 comments:
Congratulations, Claude! Hmmmm... It may be time to sit down and do some serious writing...
Hi Claude -
It was nice to have met you at Ad Astra. Congratulations on being editor of TESS 12--an anthology of novellas is a great idea.
Enjoy the process!
Best,
- S.
July stats:
I opened for subs on 22 July. From then till the end of the month I received 8 subs, on average one per day. All have been responded to.
The breakdown so far, by area:
Ontario: 4
BC: 3
Québec: 1
Nothing so far from the Territories, the Prairies, or the Maritimes. Or even from expats. I hope to see lots of all of the above.
responses:
rejections: 6
hold for further consideration: 2
I expect things to be fairly quiet for August, subs-wise, but probably around mid-September they'll start to come in increasingly faster.
August stats:
I expected August to be quiet, and I was right. Only thirteen submissions for the whole month, bringing the total to 21. All have been responded to.
The breakdown so far, by area:
Ontario: 11
BC: 7
Québec: 2
Alberta: 1
Nothing so far from the Territories or the Maritimes -- something I hope will soon change.
responses:
rejections: 17
hold for further consideration: 3
rewrite request: 1
I expect things to be fairly quiet for a few weeks still, subs-wise, but probably around mid to late September I'll see an increase.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I found this sentence confusing:
Fee for original fiction on a sliding scale from $200 to $300 (reprints: $100 to $200).
Is this a required entrance fee or is it the amount paid to the writer?
Tori:
That's the amount paid to the writer. There is no "entrance fee".
Thank you, Claude. I was pretty sure but wanted to confirm.
I expected things to start getting busier, subs wise, around the last week of September, but I was wrong about that. The rate of submissions stayed pretty much the same in August and September, i.e., a slow trickle.
I now suspect that I won't see an acceleration before December.
Total submissions as of 30 September 2007: 32 (i.e., 11 new subs in September).
The breakdown so far, by area:
Ontario: 15
BC: 8
Québec: 6
Alberta: 1
Newfoundland: 1
Expat: 1
Ontario continues to dominate, with nearly half of all submissions coming from there.
Nothing so far from the Territories, and only one apiece from the Maritimes and the Prairies. I hope to see much more from these three regions.
responses:
rejections: 25
hold for further consideration: 3 (unchanged from last month)
rewrite requests: 3
translation requests: 1
Can we ask here about why individual submissions were rejected, or for some more detail on what specifically you're looking for, what's likelier to be accepted vs. declined?
Stephen (and others),
I respond VERY quickly, but I do not have time for detailed comments on rejections.
What's most likely to be accepted?
Something with a striking voice, daring ideas, unusual characters, outré imagination, precise prose .. . something wildly entertaining and/or heartbreakingly moving ... something that will hook me from the first paragraph and make me intrigued enough to not only want but need to keep reading to satisfy my curiosity.
Most common problems in the submissions so far:
-too much unnecessary setup
-too many connecting sentences, clauses, words that don't add anything except verbiage
-pat endings that leave nothing to readers' imaginations
-saccharine sentimentality
-bland scenarios that don't take any imaginative leaps
-safe stories that don't take any daring risks, where neither author nor reader is challenged
-lack of playfulness
Also, some minor peeves that make my work harder (but that don't affect my judgment of the submissions):
-I wish people would stop putting two spaces after periods; it's an archaic style not in step with modern typesetting. To me, it's jarring to look at.
-I wish people who submit in Word & RTF would save in view: page width. It's much easier to read text that way, and Word is annoying in that it hard saves viewing mode on every document instead of deferring to preferences. (One of the many, many reasons I prefer WordPerfect, a far superior word processor in every respect, especially for editing.)
In October, the rate of submissions increased ever so slightly. November subs have already started comning in, too.
Total submissions as of 31 October 2007: 48 (i.e., 16 new subs in October).
The breakdown so far, by area:
Ontario: 25
BC: 11
Québec: 7
Alberta: 1 (unchanged)
Newfoundland: 1 (unchanged)
Saskatchewan: 1
Expat: 2
Ontario continues to dominate, with more than half of all submissions coming from there.
Nothing so far from the Territories, and the Maritimes and the Prairies continue to be poorly represented. I hope to see much more from these three regions.
responses:
rejections: 38
hold for further consideration: 6 (doubled since last month)
rewrite requests: 3 (unchanged)
translation requests: 1 (unchanged)
In November, the rate of submissions increased, especially in the second half of the month.
Total submissions as of 30 November 2007: 67 (i.e., 19 new subs in November). All submissions received so far have been responded to.
The breakdown so far, by area:
Ontario: 34
BC: 14
Québec: 9
Alberta: 5
Manitoba: 1
Saskatchewan: 1 (unchanged)
Newfoundland: 1 (unchanged)
Expat: 2 (unchanged)
Ontario continues to dominate, with slightly more than half of all submissions coming from there.
Nothing so far from the Territories, and the Maritimes continue to be poorly represented. The Prairies are starting to make more of a showing. I hope to see all regions of Canada well represented.
responses:
rejections: 52
hold for further consideration: 10
rewrite requests: 3 (unchanged)
translation requests: 2
Hi, Claude--
Just wanted to query about the status of a submission (entitled "Miles to Isengard") that I sent on November 4th.
Thanks!
Leah Bobet
cristalia_is (AT) yahoo.com
Leah --
I responded to you way back on 6 November. Damn spam filters.
I'll get in touch with you otherwise.
In December, the rate of submissions decreased slightly, presumably because of the holidays. There was one week mid-month when a good chunk of the month's submissions came in, but then it tapered off. I'm really hoping that subs will pick up in a big way in January, the last month of the submission window. I already have on hand enough good stories to assemble the anthology, but I'd like to have more choices to pick from, in order to end up with as good a book as possible.
Total submissions as of 31 December 2007: 81 (i.e., 14 new subs in December). All submissions received so far have been responded to.
The breakdown so far, by area:
Ontario: 37
BC: 18
Québec: 11
Alberta: 8
Manitoba: 2
Saskatchewan: 1 (unchanged)
Newfoundland: 1 (unchanged)
Nova Scotia: 1
Expat: 2 (unchanged)
Ontario continues to dominate, with 45.7% of submissions coming from there. But actually, because this past month was the most diverse yet in terms of provenance, this is the lowest percentage that Ontario's been at.
Still nothing so far from the Territories, and the Maritimes continue to be poorly represented, with nothing at all from New Brunswick or PEI. Every month, after a slow start, the Prairies are now increasing in number of subs, especially Alberta. I still hope to see all regions of Canada well represented.
responses:
rejections: 63
hold for further consideration: 14
rewrite requests: 2
translation requests: 2
Hi Claude,
I'd like to query about the status of a submission (entitled "The Glass Plague") that I sent on November 29th.
Thank you,
Costi Gurgu
costigurgu@yahoo.com
Costi,
I responded to you on 2 December 2007. Yahoo appears to often block emails from me. This is a persistent problem. People who submit to an email address should fix their filters to accept emails from that address.
I will resend my reply once you tell me that you've fixed the filter problem, or if you supply an alternate email address.
Claude,
I'm sorry, I don't know of any filters! I don't know what to fix.
Anyway, here is another e-mail address: costigurgu@rogers.com
Thank you!
Costi,
Just resent my response to your alternate email address.
Hi Claude,
Unfortunately, it didn't work with Rogers either. It's weird, because I checked and I have no filters on. It's the first time this happens to me and it's really embarrassing. Yet, I'd really like to solve this problem, not only for this answer, but also for future messaging.
So, I created an account with google as a new alternate e-mail and hope this time it will work. I checked and don't have any filters with google either.
Here it is:
costigurgu@gmail.com
Thank you and thousands of apologies,
Costi
Costi:
okay. sent it again.
But you need to speak to your providers. If my emails aren't getting through, others aren't either. Yahoo, I know from experience, is a problem. They often filter my emails.
This is an excellent opportunity. I only wish I'd known about it sooner!
Two questions: The guidelines mention a biography for the cover letter. What kind of details are you looking for, writing qualifications or just some short "this is me"?
The second question is, how stringent are you about the word limits in place (for example, would being say, a hundred words under the minimum or over the maximum affect whether or not the piece was considered?)
Thanks,
Natalie
Natalie,
re: word count
100 words or so either way is not a big deal, but it's still best not to stray.
re: bio
qualifications are irrelevant, but look at the bios in various anthologies or online mags, and do something similar. Under 100 words, please. Even briefer is fine, too.
Hi Claude,
History’s repeating. I still didn’t get your message. Gmail didn’t work either.
For the last three days I’ve been exchanging messages with the customer support from Yahoo, Google and Rogers, asking them of the possible reasons I don’t get the messages from your specific address: t12@lostpages.net, and I also asked them to check their servers to see if your messages from December 2nd, January 2nd and January 3rd are still there and if yes, send them in my inbox.
Their answer was that since I don’t have any filters on and you are not on my blocked list, even more you’re in my contact list in every email I gave you, I should’ve received those messages. And also, every one of them said that they checked the activity for those days and no message from your address got on their servers. They say it is probably something at your end, because there is no reason for me not to get your messages.
I know that your patience must be at an end with me, but I still find it unbelievable and frustrating not to be able to communicate with you. I really need to know your answer before the deadline ends, although I am aware that even if I send you a second story, I still won’t be able to find out the answer, unless you agree to try some unorthodox methods. Like, I could send you my phone number through email (it seems that you get my messages, only I can’t get yours), or you could go on my blog: http://vyrclozone.wordpress.com/about/, and leave a comment on “Despre mine” page. It will not be published immediately, as it will wait for my approval, so I can read it privately.
Yet, if you consider that the fault is on my part and it is not worth the effort, then I apologize for wasting your time and wish you good luck with this anthology.
All the best,
Costi
Costi:
gmail? Wow. That's a first. I use my own domain's servers, so no outgoing mails get filtered. ISPs, I know from experience, rarely want to acknowledge that the problem lies with them and are willing to waste enormous amounts of time to avoid examining their own faults. Anyway. I posted the response on your blog, as you asked.
Thank you very much. I finally got it!
Best,
Costi
Hello Claude, in reading the formatting requirements for the Tesseracts submissions, they seem to stray somewhat from the generic manuscript format (no double spaces after periods, keep italics italics, for example). Do you still want the submissions to appear as Courier 10 font with lines double-spaced, or would you prefer a single-spaced proportional font, ie TNR 10? What is the easiest for you to read? Thanks in advance!
-Mike
Mike,
Courier New 12 is probably best. And double-spaced is easier to read.
BTW -- only in genre mags who still think it's the 1950s does anyone still want double spaces after periods and underscore for italics. When you format a manuscript for a publisher, you need to strip all of those out, so it's more work for nothing. I've worked with more than half a dozen publishers, and all of them insist on single spaces and true formatting (i.e., italics for italics). It's one of my pet peeves that many in SF publishing won't keep up with the times and promulgate all these archaic ways of preparing manuscripts, giving writers bad habits.
(Where I do stray is asking for no headers/pagination, and that's simply because I work on screen and it's one less thing to strip away when I incorporate the file into the larger manuscript, should the story make it into the book.)
A special update as we near the deadline, and to mark the 100th submission replied to.
IMPORTANT: if you sent a valid submission earlier than 16 January and have not gotten a response, please query BEFORE THE DEADLINE. Either I did not receive your submission or you did not get my response. But all valid submissions received up to 16 January have been responded to. The deadline of 1 February 2008, 6 a.m., will be firm and if your submission has not been received before then, it will not be considered. So please query in time if you sent something but have any reason to suspect I might not have seen it. Queries for missing submissions sent after the deadline will not result in making the submission eligible, regardless of technical difficulties or any other problems.
In January, so far, the rate of submissions has increased significantly. I hope submissions keep coming in even faster from now till the deadline. I already have on hand enough good stories to assemble the anthology, but I'd like to have more choices to pick from, in order to end up with as good a book as possible. In fact, I've already started to prune my "hold" pile, as some stories, good as they were, just weren't going to make the final cut compared to other stories received.
Total submissions as of 18 January 2008, 4:30 p.m.: 104 (i.e., 23 new subs so far in January). The first 100 submissions received so far have been responded to, i.e., everything up to subs received on 16 January 2008.
The breakdown so far, by area:
Ontario: 47
BC: 19
Alberta: 14
Québec: 12
Manitoba: 5
Saskatchewan: 2
Nova Scotia: 2
Newfoundland: 1 (unchanged)
Expat: 2 (unchanged)
Ontario continues to dominate, with 45.2% of submissions coming from there. But this is the lowest percentage that Ontario's been at, as subs from the Prairie provinces have really been picking up, so much so that Alberta has now overtaken Québec in number of submissions. (Québec started strong early in the submission period but has since been gradually slowing down.)
Still nothing so far from the Territories, and the Maritimes continue to be poorly represented, with nothing at all from New Brunswick or PEI. I still hope to see all regions of Canada well represented.
responses:
rejections: 85
hold for further consideration: 11
still not responded to: 4
rewrite requests: 2 (unchanged)
translation requests: 2 (unchanged)
Hi Claude,
In line with your request that if we submitted a story before 16 January and haven't heard back to query, I'm now querying as to the status of my submission, Angelique, from 4 January, I believe.
Thank you!
Anita
Anita,
the problem might be Yahoo, which seems to often treat my emails as spam. Maybe look in your spam folder. I'll send my response again (the response was originally sent on 6 January)
Hi Claude,
I just sent you my story 'Fallen' but hadn't read this comment page yet. Thought I'd let you know that even though I live in Ontario at the moment, I'm from P.E.I. Just in case you don't get any subs from there, I can still kind of count. Heh. Heh. ;)
Hello Claude,
I emailed two submissions last night, but only received one confirmation email. Is this normal, or was one of my submissions not received? They were sent about a minute apart if that makes a difference.
Thanks!
Chris Smith
Chris:
Don't know why you only got one, but yes, I received both your subs.
I got confused at first by your message -- I'd forgotten that I'd set up the account to automatically acknowledge submissions.
Great! Thanks for the confirmation and the prompt reply.
Chris
Submissions are now closed.
Thanks to all who submitted!
In January the rate of submissions increased dramatically. There were more submissions in the last month than in the entire rest of the submission period. The last three days, especially, saw a flood of submissions
Total valid submissions: 189 (i.e., 108 new subs in the last month). Everything up to subs received on 31 January 2008 has been responded to, i.e., only the last day's batch has yet to be read and evaluated.
The breakdown by area:
Ontario: 78
BC: 33
Alberta: 26
Québec: 24
Manitoba: 10
Saskatchewan: 6
Nova Scotia: 4
Newfoundland: 2
New Brunswick: 1
Yukon: 1
Expat: 4
Ontario dominates, with 41.3% of all submissions coming from there. Only one submission from the Territories -- Yukon -- and the only province not represented is PEI.
responses:
rejections: 133
hold for further consideration: 23
unfulfilled translation requests: 1
still not responded to: 32
Thanks for the prompt response - good luck with the anthology!
So I've whittled it down to 25 finalists -- and I only have space for 5 to 9 stories (appr. 90 000 words). I have some very hard decisions to make.
Some stats among the finalists...
By region:
Ontario: 10
Québec: 7
BC: 2
Alberta: 1
Manitoba: 1
New Brunswick: 1
Nova Scotia: 1
Saskatchewan: 1
Expat: 1
By gender:
15 stories by men
9 stories by women
1 man/woman collaboration
Those last are interesting stats, Claude. I'd be interesting in seeing (once you're done all the hard work) just what the gender split was on all subs. I've noted that Rich Horton measures gender splits in his year-end reviews.
D
Derryl:
I don't know if I'd have the patience to go through all 189 subs to count the gender split. Plus some of them are not 100% sure either way (initials, gender-neutral names).
Still struggling to make my final choices ... I should have my mind made up by Friday (hopefully before).
By now, everyone should have received their final responses, at least, they've all been sent. A total of seven stories comprise Tesseracts Twelve, and I have received confirmations of acceptance from all those authors. If, for some reason, my response did not make it into your inbox, then, you can assume it was a rejection. Thank you again to all who submitted. There were many excellent stories to choose from, which means that readers win, as the seven stories that made it into the book are the best of all those.
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