Editor Interview: Inner Worlds Zine

The internal fantastic

There are far too many to list here and I don't think I could organise them into admire most or least in any meaningful way, but I'll take the chance to shout out to Bone Parade, Archive of the Odd, Hearth Stories, The Colored Lens, and 34 Orchard who are all doing interesting things.

In our submission guidelines I've included a long list of some of my favourite stories and books with themes or approaches which fit with - and in some cases helped to inspire! - Inner Worlds. It features Martha Wells, P. Djèlí Clark, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, John Wiswell, and many more.

Maybe two main things? One, we are explicitly interested in speculative fiction as metaphor, analogy, allegory, fable, as well as enjoying stories in these genres for their own sake. Two, our focus is always on the interiority of the characters or of the author persona, expressed or explored through the tropes and trappings of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Most of our submissions tend towards dark and difficult themes and experiences, and we're absolutely here for that. But we're also interested in lighter and more pleasant experiences too. I welcome stories about anguish and crisis, but I love to read stories about joy and recovery too. Funny stories of any shade of light or dark are very welcome also!

It's a story that moves me, and maybe shows me something about human experience that is new and strange to me, or perhaps old and deeply familiar. And more practically, it follows our guidelines.

Wrong length. Not anonymized. No content warning on the document. I understand though that submitting to magazines is fiddly, time-consuming, and stressful so I'm not very strict about it and we don't ask for specific formatting or a cover letter.

As we have a specific, stated interest in sharing the voices and perspectives of marginalised groups I appreciate it when people let me know of any identities they hold or experience they've had which is relevant to their story, but it's totally optional. I read the stories first without any information about the author and make a tentative yes/no/maybe decision. Then I read the cover letter and if they have identified themselves as a member of one of the marginalised groups listed in our guidelines I will always read the story again.

I'm a fast reader, and a lot of our submissions are flash, so typically I read all the way through. But sometimes if I've read the first few paragraphs and they haven't grabbed me at all, I'll skip ahead and read the last few paragraphs as well. If, after that, I'm not interested in what happened in between I'll usually pass.

By the time the submission window closes I usually have two or three definite 'Yes' stories, and a big pile of 'Maybe' stories. I'll read everything again and then try to work out a table of contents that balances our three different genres, as well as different styles and moods. It feels a bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the front of the box.

I think I've pretty much covered it as far as my process goes. I set up my submission manager with some basic automations which I'm quite proud of, that helps me keep on top of the work and keep authors informed at each stage. I try to turn things around as quick as I can because as a writer myself I truly loathe those six month silences.

Very little. Partly because I don't want to mess with the author's words, but also because I'm lazy. I don't correct US or UK English spellings, for example, because they're not incorrect for the author, and it doesn't get in the way of the reader's understanding. But also it's one less thing to think about!

I haven't done so yet, but I would like to. I've had the honour of publishing some truly remarkable work and I would love to share it with more readers.