Interzone May 2007 Email Submission Period

Short update on the Interzone May email reading period:

So far I received 238 submissions (58 on the very first day, which gave me pause. It slowed down, thankfully), totalling about 1207000 words (about 5000 words per story).

Jed Hartman asked me to keep track of the numbers of male/female/unknown submitters, which I'm doing. So far, the numbers are:

Number of male submitters: 154
Number of female submitters: 77
Not sure of gender/anonymous: 7

So a 2:1 male/female ratio, which is, for us, a rising trend. I did count the very first email period (May 2005), and the ratio was almost 4:1, and last September it was about 3:1.

In September the ratio for accepted stories was 2:1, that is we accepted 12 stories from September (some of which already have been published):

Eight males:

"Elevator Episodes in Seven Genres" by Ahmed A. Kahn;
"Tearing Down Tuesday" by Steven Francis Murphy (IZ #210);
"Winter" by Jamie Barras (IZ #209);
"If" by Daniel Akselrod and Lenny Royter;
"The Two-Headed Girl" by Paul G. Tremblay;
"The Scent of their Arrival" by Mercurio D. Rivera;
"Cradle of the Mind" by Tristan Palmgren;
"The Shenu" by Alexander Marsh Freed;

Four females:

"Heartstrung" by Rachel Swirsky (IZ #210);
"A Handful of Pearls" by Beth Bernobich;
"Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise" by Sue Burke
"Pseudo-Tokyo" by Jennifer Linnaea.

Make of that what you will: I'm reporting this because Jed asked me.

Also, three submitters sent their stories to the wrong email address: I thought it was self-evident that the May submissions should go to the Interzone.May2007@gmail.com addy, but three of you sent them to the November address: Interzone.November2007@gmail.com . I don't check that one so often, and it's basically the wrong one.

Finally, I'm off to a combined business/pleasure trip to Australia tomorrow. So there will not be the usual 'receive acknowledges' during the weekend, because I'm travelling. I should get back to it on Monday.

Actually, this trip was planned for April, so I should dive into the email reading period fresh, but got delayed, so now they coincide. Not the original plan. I was also back-logged with other things, with which I've mostly caught up now, so have only just started reading the slush. Expect the first rejections after the weekend.

Liberation Day

May 5 is Liberation Day in the Netherlands. It's celebrated by Liberation Festivals in the 13 province capitals across the country. Den Bosch is the capital of the province Noord-Brabant, so we have this festival every year. It's one of my favourites.

Originally it celebrated the liberation from the Nazi occupation (actually, it still does), but the festival has grown to a celebration of liberty in general (so the liberty to be different), and as such has become a festival of diversity and multiculturalism.

Bands perform from every corner of the world, this year they included Ghana, Ukraine, and a band with members from Kosovo, Chile, and Belgium. OK, and a few Dutch bands as well. Also a great variety of food stands, while the beer was only from Holland (a thing they should improve).

I had a great time, got rather inebriated, and was happy that the next day was Sunday (instead of a working day).

Peace out!