That’s right–my first published story just came out in issue 58 of The Leading Edge. I am happy to say that after three years of formally pursuing my career as a writer, I am now a published author!
The story is titled Decision LZ1527, and it’s about a guy asking a girl out on a date–as told from the point of view of the little men inside his head piloting his body like a starship. I really like the tagline in the table of contents: “A man, a woman, and a whole crew of matchmakers.”
Full disclosure: I submitted this story after I joined the staff as a volunteer slushpile reader. Most of the editors for this issue are pretty good friends of mine (including the Production Director, who’s one of my most trusted alpha readers). I submitted it under a pseudonym, however, so most of the staff didn’t know it was mine until after they’d accepted it.
The Leading Edge is known for the excellent quality of its illustrations, and I’m happy to say that I lucked out with with the artist the editors picked for my story! Josh McGill is a graphic designer and aspiring children’s book illustrator. He’s done art for issues 53 and 55 of The Leading Edge. The picture on the right is the one he did for the front page of my story. I must say, I’m impressed!
The Leading Edge is a semi-professional small press science fiction and fantasy magazine affiliated with BYU. It’s been in publication since the early 80s, when Marion K. “Doc” Smith’s famous “class that wouldn’t die” got together and started it, along with Quark and LTUE. If you would like to support the magazine (and read my story!) you can purchase a copy of issue 58 at the following link:
Lot’s of people dream about getting published, but it takes a lot of hard work and rejection to actually make it happen. As writers, though, we tend to be harder on ourselves than we ought to be. It took almost four years for Decision LZ1527 to find its way into print, but it did. That’s enough to make the rest of the process worth it.
Let’s hope it’s the first of many!
Congratulations. That’s great. I’m definitely going to order this issue.
I’m interested to know–what happened after you sent it in? Were there additional rounds of revision working closely with an editor? Did they just plop it into the magazine?
Thanks Stephen! Way to support the magazine!
There was a lot that happened after my story was accepted. First, it passed through the slushpile. Once two readers gave it a pass, it went to Chris and Camille (whom I didn’t know at the time). Once the editors accepted it, we signed the contract on June 18th, 2009.
Once that was finished, they ran it through some fairly substantive edits, which I had to negotiate with them. Some of them were pretty big: for example, I had to change the name of the main character and the title of the piece. The basic story, however, remained the same–no extra subplots or anything else.
After that phase, it went through copy editing. Around that point, they told me they had an artist and showed me the illustrations. I didn’t have any control over that part–they showed me the art after it had all been approved and they were finishing up the layout.
Just before they published it, Chris emailed me with a pdf of the copy that was going to go to print. I looked over it, caught a few last minute things I wanted to change (minor but important things, like the pull quote), and sent it back with my suggested changes. He confirmed that the changes were made, sent it off to press, and about a month later I got my contributor copies in the mail!
That’s basically the process. Chuck says I was pretty anal, but I think she’s just teasing me about the last minute changes I requested. Overall, it was relatively smooth and painless.
Congrats on your first publication. Let’s hope there are many more to come.
Congratulations! <3 mom
Good work, Joe! I’ve got a copy of it, so I’ll be sure to read your story.