Seems that I hit some sort of nerve with my last post. I should rephrase that, not really a nerve (which usually carries connotations of irritating someone) but rather that I wrote something that people are talking about. Cool. It's hard to tell, when I write these things, if anyone is paying any attention (we'll leave the question of whether anyone should be paying attention to me to another day...) to what I'm writing. It seems that some people do. I have a few more thoughts on this, but I'm going to try and break them up into separate posts so that I am able to get my ideas on the 'page'. If I tried to write them all into one, big, cohesive post, I would never get it done.

So, back to what I was talking about a few days ago wherein the women are taking over. The helpful people at Broad Universe sent me an e-mail linking to some stats they compiled in 2002 (with data from Ralan and the SFWA bulletin) about the field. Pertinent to my discussion is this section on Editors. Here's a short snip:

Semi-Pro Markets:
Women: 24 (27%)
Men: 60 (67%)
Unknown: 6 (7%)

Pro Markets:
Women: 14.5 (26%)
Men: 40.5 (74%)

Semi-Pro Magazines:
Women: 9 (29%)
Men: 22 (71%)

Professional-Level SF/F Magazines:
Women: 6 (21%)
Men: 22 (79%)

Publishing Houses:
Women: 5 (45%)
Men: 6 (55%)

There's quite the disparity in the number of male editors as opposed to female editors. I won't pretend that SF/Fantasy isn't a male-dominated field. Without seeing statistical evidence, I am certain that the readership, authorship, and editorship of the field is predominantly male. Further down from the editorial information on Broad Universe's page you can see how men have dominated the awards over the years. With the exception being the Tiptree. I wish I had up-to-date information (and yes, it's out there for me to compile...perhaps I will do so to update this post later) but you can see how in 1980-89, 14 women and 22 men won Nebula Awards. Then, in 1990-99, that number changes to 19 women and 21 men. That's a remarkable shift from less than 40% of the total awards given to almost half. And since the Nebula is a professional-organization awarded prize--as opposed to the Hugos which are voted by the people--should we interpret from those numbers that women are better writers than men? I think that's a poor interpretation of the data. Better yet to say that the writing that was done by women in the 1990s was better accepted than it was in previous decades.

Further proof of this is shown in the Campbell Award for Best New Writer (a voted award like the Hugos) wherein we had 5 women and 5 men win during 1980-89, but 6 women and 4 men won during 1990-99 (Broad Universe's data was wrong, they stated 6 women and 5 men, and I had to go check for myself since that implied 11 awards in a ten-year span). And since I was looking, since 2000, there has been one male winner of the Campbell; the rest have been female. And, since I was doing some research anyway, I went and looked up the Nebula results for 200 to the present. Discounting the screenplays (since they are typically not the work of a single person and most always had men and women credited for the writing) my count stands at 10 men and 10 women winning Nebula awards. It will be interesting to see how this decade plays out.

Let me note that I think this is all A VERY GOOD THING. I may never have stated this so succinctly before, but I prefer character-driven pieces over action-oriented pieces. And I believe women create better characters, in general, than men do. I'd rather read about people I care about than read about some cool thing or place.

Further down the Broad Universe page we can see the numbers of men versus women for appearances in the Year's Best anthology. No surprise that it is only The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror series that is consistently even if not more female-centric than any other yearly anthology. Is it because women tend to write more fantasy and horror than men? I would be hard-pressed to agree with that. Plus, if you look at the Campbell and Nebula evidence, women are writing good science fiction. I doubt that the award-winning pieces are all that's published by women during the course of the year, so there must be more out there. The Year's Best Fantasy edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, features nearly twice as much fiction by men as by women year after year. Is it the horror that adds more women writers? I think you have to look at who's making the choices for these anthologies. The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror was edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling until this year's edition with Gavin Grant and Kelly Link taking over Terri's duties. With two women at the helm, more women's writing was selected.

This could mean a lot of things. Ellen and Terri could be purposefully selecting women's writing merely because it was written by a woman. That's a tough thing to say, and I don't believe it for a second. I think the fact lies in that Ellen and Terri, being women, read stories differently than their male counterparts. Stories of conquest, stories where the male scientist saves the Earth probably have limited appeal to Ellen and Terri. Still, most years men make up the majority of contributors to The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. I also think that fantasy and horror allow themselves to appear in more places than pure SF, so your marketplace is wider. You can read through literary journals and The New Yorker and find pieces that fit into a fantasy and horror anthology that don't fit into a SF anthology. Still, I think it is dependent on who's making choices.

My own zine features unwarranted domination by male writers. I'm working on including more female authors, and we'll see how that works for me as time goes on. With a man at the helm of my zine, are women less disposed to submit fiction to me? Are they unwilling to send me a story due to the ugly connotations of the word submit? I don't know. I do know that if a market looks like it prefers men, women will avoid it. That only makes sense. If there was a market that consistently published only women or mostly women, men might not even consider it. So perhaps more female writers send their publications to Ellen and Terri since they feel more comfortable with them than with Gardner.

Let's look at one last piece of data. Susan Linville has compiled (from 1980 to 2001) data on the number of women versus men published in Asimov's, F&SF, Analog, and Realms of Fantasy. With the exception of Realms of Fantasy these publications overwhelmingly publish men over women. Now, this actually implies that they are more men writing SF than women. There may be some misogynstic tendencies in publishing that I am unaware of, but I feel that these editors have published more men than women due to the fact that the sheer volume of submissions by men is greater than that by women. Consider that all of these publications except Analog have had a women editor during this time frame (Shawna McCarthy having edited both Asimov's and Realms of Fantasy is quite impressive!). We can't assume, therefore, that it is due to a man being at the helm that we are seeing more men than women in the magazines.

I'm glad to see more women in important roles in the SF world. I hope the trend continues. While there are points in the past when women have been in charge of major editorial duties--I was reminded about 1994 where Ellen Datlow was still editing for Omni, Shawna McCarthy was launching Realms of Fantasy, and Kris Rusch was editing F&SF--I think things are different this time.

SciFiction is changing the way people look at short fiction, and I think this is the most notable difference between now and any previous time. I think for all her time in the field, Ellen Datlow is getting the attention and recognition that she deserves. In the past year, either Ellen or pieces Ellen has edited have won World Fantasy awards and Nebula awards. Two years ago Ellen won the Hugo for Best Editor, and I think she deserves it again this year. I can't wait to see what she brings us next.

From Locus Online:

Gardner Dozois steps down as editor of Asimov's Science Fiction, after almost 19 years, to pursue other projects, including his own writing ? Dozois will remain with Asimov's as Contributing Editor, providing editorial guidance and interacting with readers via the Internet and at public events. Sheila Williams, the current Executive Editor, will succeed Dozois as Editor. Williams' first official issue will be January 2005. ? Dozois has won the Hugo Award 14 times as Best Professional Editor, and the Nebula Award 2 times, in 1984 and 1985, for Best Short Story

And from the man himself:

Well, after almost twenty years of reading manuscripts all day, from the time I get up in the morning until the time I go to sleep at night and the manuscript drops from my nerveless fingers and thumps on the floor, it's time to scale back. I want to go out while I'm still on top of my game, before editing the magazine become a chore rather than a pleasure, and before I become burnt-out and cynical. I'd also like to be able to pursue other projects, including perhaps finding the time to get some of my own writing done.

So I'm stepping down and Sheila Williams will become the new editor of ASIMOV'S, the acquisitions editor, and you should address all future submissions to her. Nobody loves the magazine more than Sheila, or has worked harder for it over the years, and I couldn't leave it in better hands.

I'll still be around to keep an eye on things as a Contributing Editor, providing editorial advice and guidance, running our twice-monthly internet chats on the Sci-Fi Channel site, visiting with you folks here on the Forum page of the ASIMOV'S website, and helping to represent the magazine at the Worldcon and at other conventions and professional functions.

Meanwhile, Sheila will be doing the hard work of taking ASIMOV'S into the future. Please give her--and the magazine--the same support you've always given me.

Interesting, to say the least. Having worked for Gardner and Shelia, I know that the magazine is going into more-than-capable hands. Also having worked with them, I have my own suspicions for other reasons this may have happened, but since I cannot confirm anything, I will keep such ideas to myself. The only speculation I can make is that perhaps Gardner read all my complaints about people winning Hugos many many times and the guilt drove him to leave editing. But that idea is ludicrous.

The thing that strikes me is, we are seeing some big shifts in the SF editorial world, particularly where short fiction is concerned. As it is, Sci Fiction walked away with the short fiction Nebulas recently. Also, David Pringle has stepped down from Interzone and given editorial duties to Andy Cox of The Third Alternative. I kind of get this feeling of 'the sky is falling' from the SF community. Since Pringle and Dozois were/are such visionary powerful editors, this could be a source of concern for a field that people feel is on its last breath (where it's been since the 1960s). What's next? Will Stan Schmidt stand down from Analog and David Hartwell from Tor? I mean, is Langford going to hand Ansible over to Teresa Nielsen Hayden? Are all of our name-recognition editors are moving on to new endeavors. What does it all mean?

I think it's a sign of the times. I think these types of moves happen all the time. It's just been a long time since we've had such major change. I mean, Gardner was at Asimov's for nearly 20 years. No one else but Pringle has edited Interzone, but before Gardner, Asimov's had Shawna McCarthy, George Scithers, and Asimov himself (I know that George was always the magazine's primary editor, but I suspect Asimov had a hand in things here and there). But Gardner surely had the longest tenure there. All the same, new blood needs to come in and change things around. We can't keep publishing the same way we have for the past 20 years.

It's not the 1980s any more.

There are many young editors out there doing excellent work. The formerly mentioned Andy Cox, Jeff VanderMeer of The Ministry of Whimsy, Deborah Layne and Jay Lake of Wheatland Press, Gavin Grant and Kelly Link of Small Beer Press, Jason Williams and Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books, Bill Schaeffer of Subterranean Press, and there are more. Yes, many of these people/places are small press. It's no secret that I'm a proponent of the small press. These are people who do this because they love it; and a lot of them are able to do it for a living. That's not by accident. They do this for a living because they have good editorial minds to pick excellent work and provide the public with great stuff to read. They are finding new things to publish that people want to see, not the same old thing that's been done before. It's a tough business. In my heart of hearts I hope someday to join them full time, but I can't bring myself to those expectations yet.

Now, a counterpoint. I think that Dozois and Pringle (and Terri Windling who handed over her Year's Best Fantasy duties to Gavin and Kelly) were great at what they do. I do not feel that they decided to leave because they felt they were irrelevant. Nor do I think they were irrelevant. But I think that is why they left. They could go when they were still on the top of their game and hand things over to new people they felt more-than-capable of continuing their work. Remember, at one point Gardner and Pringle were new and people doubted them and whether they would be able to edit. Everyone is new at some point. I have no worries that Shelia will continue Asimov's legacy of success.

And that brings me to the thought that led me to writing this:

Asimov's = Shelia Williams
Sci Fiction = Ellen Datlow
Realms of Fantasy = Shawna McCarthy

Interesting that three major sources of short fiction have female editors. To extrapolate further, Deborah Layne is the driving force behind Wheatland Press and the amazing Polyphony series, and Kelly Link is half of the team that puts out LCRW and consistently great (and award-winning!) books. Ellen's Sci Fiction (as I noted above) swept the Nebula short fiction categories earlier this year. And, she broke up Gardner's streak of consecutive Best Editor Hugos a few years ago. What next for our fair Ellen? What next for the other ladies who are out there that we don't know about yet? I think this is a trend that deserves some attention.

So, watch out guys.

The ladies are coming.

It's about time.

John Klima
Editor
Electric Velocipede
http://www.electricvelocipede.com

One of the best parts of living in NJ is that it's really easy to get somewhere else fast.

No seriously. Most places in NJ are about one hour from NYC and one hour from Philadelphia. Where I live, in Central Jersey (remember it's all CAPS) I'm about three hours from Baltimore, which means about three and a half from Washington D.C.

I'm about five hours from Pittsburgh and Boston. About three hours from Albany, about seven from Buffalo. Also seven hours from Montreal and nine from Toronto.

These are all times by car. But none of them are too bad, until you get to Canada, and then you probably have more than a weekend for the trip; but I have driven to Toronto for a three-day weekend.

Why is this important? Well, I spent this last weekend in Western Mass (sorry to anyone I didn't tell I was going) to pick up issue #6 of Electric Velocipede from its new printer.

You might ask, so you drove almost four hours to pick up the new issue of your zine? How could that be worth it? Well, there are other things to do in the area that I enjoy. And, this printer was more than half the price of the old place, and the old place's cost meant I was collating, folding, stapling, etc. myself!

The new place did it all for me. Looks great. I can't wait for six months from now when I make the next issue.

John Klima
Editor
Electric Velocipede
http://www.electricvelocipede.com

Finally.

After years of whining, it seems that something real will happen with the Hugo awards this year and the stupid fans will be forced to know something about the categories before they vote:

Locus Article

This gives us all new people a chance at awards, even if we're not really ready. C'mon, those people have won enough; do you really need to see another Michael Swanwick story on the ballot? What was it a few years ago, he had three stories on the ballot? Even if you voted with your eyes shut you'd probably give him the Hugo.

In another article, I'm very excited to see that Wizards of the Coast if branching out into the legimate worlds of fiction, rather than all those books about their game worlds.

Locus Article #2

I've always wanted my favorite authors to write together and combine their worlds. It's too much to remember if they're all separate anyway.

I mean, these articles are from Locus, they can't be bogus...can they?

John Klima