Irrelevant Cheetah

Odd how things come together sometimes.

WordVixen turned me on to Simon Haynes and his Hal SpaceJock series of books. Although I have never read any of his books, I immediately liked his blog and started to read it regularly. He often mentions that he is an editor/slushpile reader for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, a small publication that is printed in Australia. Interesting factoid, but nothing more, I thought. Oh – and I entered the drawings to win his current books, which aren’t sold in the US yet.

I also started reading 101 Reasons to Stop Writing (also in my blogroll.) About a week ago 101 Reasons began posting a three-part interview with Haynes and other slushpile readers for – you guessed it: Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Apparently it’s a vague, weird, three-part process, going through several stages, in order for a story to get accepted and printed in the magazine.

So I did the only thing I could: I submitted a story. I won a free issue from one of Simon’s drawings, and after reading it I realized that I write that sort of stuff. I ignored all of the voices telling me to stop, carefully followed ASIM’s submission guidelines exactly, and submitted one of my own, recent stories.

Here’s where it gets good. I just got notice that “The Fixers” has passed the first round of slushpile tests. ASIM is very good at keeping authors informed throughout the submission process as to how their work is doing. I realize it’s a stretch yet before it’s actually accepted/published, but I’m still jazzed. Wish me luck.