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Q: Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less.
A: Science Fiction
Q: What other current publications (or publishers) do you admire most?
A: Online fiction: Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Tor.com Podcasts: Escape Pod, Starship Sofa
Anthologies: Prime Books, Night Shade Books, Eos Books
Q: If you publish writing, who are your favorite writers? If you publish art, who are your favorite artists?
A: Charles Stross, Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, John Scalzi, Neal Gaiman, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ken MacLeod, William Gibson, Gene Wolfe
Q: What sets your publication apart from others that publish similar material?
A: We publish a broad range of science fiction short stories and pay a professional rate, but we will publish new writers as quickly as experienced writers, as long as the story excites us.
Q: What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?
A: Follow the guidelines. Make something happen.
Q: Describe the ideal submission.
A: Under 4000 words. Punches me in the face, takes science fiction conventions & stretches them, and makes me look at something in a different way than I did before.
Q: What do submitters most often get wrong about your submissions process?
A: Submissions are too long, or they are fantasy and not science fiction.
Q: How much do you want to know about the person submitting to you?
A: We usually only check cover letters after we like a story, and I'm not a fan of long lists of publications. We have been and will be some of the first professional sales for our authors.
Q: If you publish writing, how much of a piece do you read before making the decision to reject it?
A: We try to read all of everything. But, by halfway I almost always know, unless the ending makes me want to reread the whole thing.
Q: What additional evaluations, if any, does a piece go through before it is accepted?
A: We all read it, and we are all looking for slightly different things, so if it can get by everyone, it is a good piece.
Q: What is a day in the life of an editor like for you?
A: I usually do all my Redstone work at night, between 7 and 12 after I'm done teaching, exercising, and cooking supper. When we have submissions, we read and comment on each story in our private online group. If it's a no-go, we send a letter letting the author know what we liked about it and possibly what we didn't. If instead, it clears all the editors, we set it aside and come back a few days later to re-read decide if we really want it. If we still do, we'll send out the contract.
Q: How important do you feel it is for publishers to embrace modern technologies?
A: We publish online, have email subs & response, online slush reading, twitter, facebook, PDF's and EPUBS. We finally got our ISSN and should be on iBooks soon. We are pure technology. I mean, we publish science fiction, how could we not be? Now, we will publish print anthologies, because it is nice to hold a book, but, of course, we'll have electronic versions of them too.