
There’s approximately a week left to submit a story for consideration for UFO3, and I thought I’d write up a slush pile update.
Every submission received through March 22 has been responded to with either a rejection or a bump up to the second round.
We have read a total of 245 submissions so far this month (which sounds like a lot, but is actually a lighter volume than last year. There’s always a huge swell of subs in the last couple of days, though).
There are currently 8 accepted stories from headliners and I’m waiting on two more headliners to turn in stories. Additionally, there are seven stories being held in the “final consideration” pile, and 6 more are currently in the second round.
As ever, things the associate editors and I are seeing too many of include: zombies, alien invasions and probing, stories that we don’t find to be at all humorous, zombies, vampires, puns, and did I mention zombies?
Things we want to see more of are stories with more than a humorous line or two placed somewhere within 6000 words, strong voices, and unique situations or characters. Some of the associate editors would also like a pony, but I realize that you can’t have everything and will settle for more quality submissions.
#SFWAPro