But it's hard to not feel one's ears burn when I make a post like THIS one...
and a little while later the following appears in New York Review of Science Fiction :
"There have been interesting discussions on the web about criticism in the sf field, and how difficult it is to break in, that have us scratching our heads. Every critical magazine in the field is looking for reviewers and for well-written and well-thought-out essays, both online and in print. In case you are wondering, anyone who contacts by mail or email is welcomed--encouraged, even--to submit reviews for us, a policy we have had for nearly twenty years. We email people whose reviews we read and ask them if they have time to review for us, too. Apparently we are too formidable for some people, who never contact us because they already know we would reject them. and some of them feel this way because we are a print magazine, rather than electronic -- print is for the old elite closed network, or some such. In fact, we have run reviews and essays by intelligent teenagers, as well as intelligent PhDs with formidable reputations, and we intend to continue. And we wish well to everyone who wants to write about sf, whatever the venue. Please feel free to email the addresses on page 3.
-- David G. Hartwell and the Editors"
They seem to be repeating what Kathryn Cramer said at the time with regards to accepting email submissions but it's interesting to note that the online NYRSF writers' guidelines haven't been updated (since 2001 in fact), and they still say that they don't accept unsolicited email submissions which is, apparently, quite a common policy. So if they have in fact changed their policy regarding e-submissions over the last 6 years then this should be applauded, even if this official statement of editorial policy does comes with a large dose of sarcasm.
Speaking of which, Paul Raven's VCTB has news of an even more sarcastic opinion on the dead-tree/digital format debate, this time from Scott Edelman at SciFi Weekly.
Stay tuned to SF Diplomat for the next exciting episode of "Which respected member of the SF Community can Jonathan piss off next?"
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