You can now preorder my forthcoming novel THE CREEK GIRL (due out Feb. 2025) — at least from Barnes & Noble!

From 4/17-4/19, all preorders are 25% for B&N Rewards members (and 35% off for Premium members), which is a screaming deal.

I got some very surprising news this week: I am a finalist for the Locus Award for Best Editor!

Just look at this amazing list:

• Neil Clarke
• Ellen Datlow
• Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
• Arley Sorg & Christie Yant
• Jonathan Strahan
• Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
• Sheree Renée Thomas
• Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
• Wendy N. Wagner
• Sheila Williams

The people on this list edit some of the most exciting and critically important publications on the planet. Several of them are editors who I’ve dreamed of working with my entire career, and some are newer editors whose work is pushing the industry to new and thrilling heights. I don’t know how my name can possibly belong up there with theirs, but it is an incredible honor.

Please note: Every editor is different and has different experiences. This note is not about all magazines and all submissions and all genres. It is about me and how I edit at Nightmare Magazine.

Currently at Nightmare Magazine, I use two form rejections for prose submissions. They look like this:

Default:
Thanks for submitting “Submission Title,” but I’m going to pass on it. Best of luck to you placing this one elsewhere, and thanks again for sending it my way.

#2 on the pull-down menu:

Thanks for submitting “Submission Title,” but I’m going to pass on it. We had a good time reading it, but it’s not quite the right fit for me right now. Best of luck to you placing this one elsewhere, and thanks again for sending it my way. I look forward to seeing your next submission!

In general, I try to select the second letter for stories that were read more than once, like if a submission reader bumped the story into my submission pile, or if I started reading the story and thought it could be interesting and saved it for a closer read later. (That said, the first letter is the default letter, so if you get it, there’s always a chance that I mis-clicked on the pull-down menu. It has happened several times.)

I have been working on these letters since John Joseph Adams set me up to accept or reject stories in the submissions engine in mid-2020, and there’s a chance they could still change. I have strongly considered including a link to a picture of a dog hugging a capybara or something equally cute, or maybe a link to a clip from The Big Lebowski, when The Dude says “That’s just, like, your opinion, man,” which is what I say whenever one of my stories gets rejected. At any rate, the letters are a work in progress, and I’ve put a lot of thought into them.

Sometimes I do personalize these letters a little. If I am sending a letter to someone whose name I recognize from previous submissions, or we’ve worked together before, or we get along really well on Twitter, I might put in a note like “I’m so glad I got to see a new story from you!” But that’s about the biggest change I’ll make. It’s not really what you’d call a “personal rejection.”

Here’s a list of all the reasons I don’t send personal rejections (in no particular order):

1. I think rejectomancy — the practice of closely examining rejection letters and other available information about the submissions process — is bad for both writers and the business of publishing. It reinforces the idea that creative work can (and should!) be divided into categories like good/bad, skilled/clumsy, publishable/unpublishable, professional/unprofessional, worthy/unworthy. In the age of self-publishing, we’ve all seen those dichotomies are meaningless. There are teens on Wattpad with larger readerships than the biggest magazines in the realm of speculative fiction, and these kids don’t even have copy editors. My judgment about your story doesn’t mean that your story is any less capable of moving a reader. You should not value your story any more or less because it got a rejection from a magazine.
2. I do not trust my ability to think on the fly. Like just about everybody else in publishing, I squeeze in reading submissions outside my normal work hours. This means that when I’m reading subs, I am tired and probably cranky that instead of curling up on the couch with my adorable pets, I am doing work. I am also trying to work fast, because there is an endless amount of submissions and emails about submissions. Under those conditions, I’m not sure I could say something intelligent and gracious and kind about every submission, or even just the submissions that are “close but not quite.” In fact, I’m not sure I could even be intelligible.
3. Related, but slightly different: I want to introduce the least amount of harm into the submissions experience. I am writing this post in an attempt to rip the secret curtain from the submissions process. In my experience, the submissions process encourages editors to engage with stories in the most facile and superficial ways. The large number of submissions and the constant pressure for a quick response requires this. And this means I miss out on a lot of nuances. I probably misread a tremendous number of things. If I told you why I didn’t like your story, you would probably say to yourself “But that’s not actually what happened in my story,” or “This editor is so stupid!’ and if we ever saw each other in real life, you would harbor great resentment toward me. (I have wasted years loathing submissions readers for this reason, only to finally come to the realization I should be blaming the submissions process). And guess what? The same amount of harm can also be inflicted by positive comments! Trust me when I say that I don’t like making people feel bad.
4. At the end of the day, there is nothing I can say about rejecting your story that will make you feel better. Some rejections come for very specific reasons, things like “this amazing story about evil mermaids was 2000 words shorter than this amazing story about evil mermaids.” But does knowing that actually help you feel better? Doesn’t it make you say “Dang it, why didn’t I write a shorter evil mermaid story”? Doesn’t it just make you second-guess the adverb you put in the second sentence of page 2? And as for the 99.9% of the stories rejected for other, more nebulous reasons like “This is good, but it just doesn’t feel very Wendy-ish” or “This is fine, but I just don’t love it and I don’t know why,” or “This is really good, but for some reason I can’t imagine re-reading the 5 times I will have to re-read it during the publishing process,” what would you possibly do with that information? Every editor is different. Heck, the next time the magazine opens to slush, I will be a different Wendy, and I might be hungry for entirely different stories.

So stop worrying about what the rejection letter says about you. Rejection is always about the editor and whatever they’re feeling or needing at that moment.

Now get out there and write your next story!

So the other day, my editor at Oregon Humanities emailed me this:

And while I know there are thousands of Pushcart nominations every year, I just about jumped out of my chair for joy!

I love reading and writing nonfiction, especially about nature, so to get this little affirmation about my nature writing really felt great. Plus, I really care about being a pedestrian advocate, so I’m doubly happy.

If you’d like to read “Glassed In,” you can find it on the Oregon Humanities website.

2017 was a mixed sort of bag. On one hand, I did a lot of exciting research, outlined a number of projects, and started some really good writing projects. On the other hand, I only managed to finish two short stories and a sprinkling of poems. However, I am extremely proud of my work at Lightspeed and Nightmare this year, where I’ve taken the helm on the nonfiction department. I am particularly proud of the work we’ve doing at Nightmare, where my nonfiction writers have been digging deeply into the tropes and themes of the horror genre.

Book tour this summer was an absolute blast! I really enjoyed chatting with the Clarion West class of 2017, and my readings throughout the region were beyond fun. I loved connecting with people who love reading just as much as I do. And I am extremely grateful for the days I got to spend with Spencer Ellsworth, the best book tour buddy a gal could ask for!

For those interested in awards nominations, my novel An Oath of Dogs definitely qualifies for the Hugo and Nebula.

I had a number of short stories come out this year: “The Burnt Sugar Stench,” from the anthology Tales from a Talking Board; “Buffalo Jump,” from the tie-in anthology Predator: If It Bleeds; “The Writing Wall,” from the Lovecraftian anthology Ride the Star Wind; “With Perfect Clarity,” from genre fiction magazine GigaNotoSaurus; and “Drift Right,” from the podcast Pseudopod.

On the food front, my garden didn’t produce particularly well this year. However, we saw a dramatic uptick in the bird and squirrel population! (Hmmn … I wonder if there might be a connection between those two events?) It’s been wonderful watching all the creatures thriving outside my back windows.

2018 promises lots of opportunities and challenges. I look forward to continuing my Poetry Form a Week Challenge, and I can’t wait for March, when I get to teach this awesome workshop in Seattle. Plus, all the outlining and research I’ve been doing should lead to some major writing excitement!

Jennifer Willis is one of my best friends; she’s also a terrific writer who helped beta-read An Oath of Dogs. Jennifer knows how much I love to snack while I’m writing, so she gave me a few recipes. They were so great I wanted to make sure to share them with everyone!

Like me, Jennifer’s got a new book out. Hers is the spicy, funny science fiction romance Mars Ho!, which  combines reality tv shenanigans with a lot of in-depth research on what it takes to send people to Mars. It’s my recommended beach reading!

I have a tendency to snack when I’m writing — especially if I’m not doing a timed writing session, like a pomodoro — and my snacking habits over the years haven’t always been the healthiest. I’m looking at you, Goldfish crackers. Also, not all of my favorite snack foods are appropriate for writing productivity. In case you’re wondering, salsa and keyboards do not play nicely together.

So I’ve gotten a little creative in the kitchen to satisfy my snacking urge while also keeping myself fit and focused. Note that Wendy Wagner’s roasted garbanzo beans have been an important mainstay of our writing sessions, and you should absolutely give those a try, too.

The first of the goodies I’ll share here is a blueberry kale smoothie. Don’t look at me like that! Kale and blueberries absolutely go together. My sister surprised me with a Nutri Ninja last December and the blueberry-kale concoction has been one of my more successful experiments. A regular blender would also work, so you don’t need fancy equipment.

Ingredients*:
(* I’ll go ahead and admit that when I’m cooking, I rarely measure anything.)
Frozen blueberries: about 2 cups
Kale: 1 leaf (minus the stem)
Water: about 1 cup
Agave/honey: to taste

Note: you can use fruit juice instead of water, and then skip the sweetener. Cocoa powder also makes for a yummy addition.

Blend this all together. Drink it. Easy.

The second snack secret I’ll share is one that became quite popular with my Call of Cthulhu RPG group. It’s homemade kettle corn. This one probably falls in the “not as bad as real junk food” category and is also my go-to during football season. I use a pretty beat-up Stir Crazy to make mine, but I’ve also had success using an old pot for popping.

Ingredients:
(Again, sorry I’m bad with measurements. Use your best judgment)
Coconut oil: about 1 tablespoon
Popcorn kernels: six handfuls (I prefer white popcorn to yellow, but either will work)
Sugar: a bit less than half a tablespoon (use however much you think you’d like)
Salt: to taste.

Heat the oil in the Stir Crazy or pot. Combine the un-popped kernels with the sugar in a separate container. I sometimes add a little curry, cayenne, and/or paprika to the mix. Once the oil has melted, add the kernels and sugar simultaneously and make sure everything gets spread out. Wait for everything to pop; if you’re using a pot, shake it occasionally to ensure even heating and prevent burning while the corn is popping. As the popping frenzy slows down, remove from heat, transfer your kettle corn to a serving bowl, and add salt to taste.

If you have leftovers, you can enjoy the kettle corn for another day or two past “popping day.” Just zap it in the microwave for about fifteen seconds first.

An admitted sci-fi nerd and urban fantasy fan, Jennifer Willis is the author of the Valhalla urban fantasy series and the MARS science fiction romance series. When she’s not hiking, knitting, baking, star-gazing, or reading like a fiend, she spends her time bringing enchantment to the world. She is also the writer behind the Northwest Love Stories feature in The Oregonian and has a byline in the BASF award-winning Women Destroy Science Fiction! from Lightspeed.