Ann, Matt, and I have made our final selections and we’re just waiting back for confirmation from the writers. When it’s official, I’ll post the contents. This year, we decided we would be more focused, taking only about 95,000 words. It also just so happened that the “mix” between genre and non-genre publications is much more balanced. Whether that happens every year or not will depend on the tastes of the next editors and whether one side or the other is having a down year quality-wise. In addition, last year we took several pieces from online sources, but this year none (unless I’m forgetting one). I would also say about our reading in general that fiction by women excited us more than fiction by men. It’s a gross generalization, of course, but I personally felt at times that, word-for-word, sentence-for-sentence, and story-for-story, female writers were taking more chances, taking more care with their work, etc. Ten of the eighteen stories we’re taking are by women.

I’ll provide an analysis of our reading from 2007 that’s more in-depth once the contents are finalized. I’ll also be talking a little bit about the divide between genre and the literary mainstream, something I think exists more in gatekeeper and reviewer minds than in writer and reader minds. It’s an interesting topic. For example, does the existence of a new thing automatically pose a threat to core genre? Is the ability to enjoy both genre and non-genre approaches to fantasy a strength or a liability? What do we mean by genre anyway? And how does the influence of pop culture erode the wall between “literature” and “genre”?

Jeff