Editor Interview: The 4th Realm

We publish creativity

I admire the small publishers, who put in the effort to help great writers get noticed when they're passed over by larger publishing houses.

Bernard Cornwell, Tad Williams, John Scalzi, Robert Jordan, GRRM, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (Death Gate Cycle), Mary Stewart, Isaac Asimov

We don't just publish stories, we act as a community that helps each other refine their craft. We critique, we edit, we comment, we revise, and then we publish. Our goal is to help each other succeed in any way we can.

Be brave, be confident, and be motivated. These are qualities that other people feed off of. When one of us is ready to blaze a trail, it inspires the others to do the same, or at the very least, to give everyone else a push when they hit those roadblocks and start to falter. We're all in this together at the4threalm.com, because if one of us succeeds, we all succeed.
Also, we can be brutally honest, but that's the point, right? If you want someone to tell you they like your work, you can just ask your parents. We are NOT your parents.

Anything that captures our imagination or makes us think. If it's not polished, or ready for publication, we'll tell you, and you'll have a chance to work on it. We're just as invested in the process of writing as we are about the end result. But once it's ready, and it's passed the gamut of our other readers/writers, we'll publish it, and share it with the world.

We like for submissions to be at least readable. We can understand if they need some work, but they need to at least be grammatically correct, and the majority of typos cleared out. Don't rely on others to clean up your writing for you. You're perfectly capable of doing that before you submit. What we're here for is to see the things that you don't, and to make sure you're not missing it, or ignoring it.

Cover letters aren't that important, especially since we take most of our submissions in our editing forum. We also don't care about prior publication, because basically, it doesn't matter what else you're published. We're concerned with what you're working on NOW.

We don't reject outright. We offer suggestions and critiques, and it's up to you to revise it or not.

None, save for the other readers on the site who want to offer critiques.

My life includes a number of other responsibilities, but that's why I enjoy new submissions. They allow me to escape for a while.