Aurealis is an Australian science fiction ezine. At one time it was the Australian science fiction magazine. They occupied a special place in my heart because they gave me my first speculative fiction credit when they published my story "Taggant 31."
After some years I decided to submit another story to them. It was more difficult this time because they have "limited demographic" periods wherein only Australians and New Zealanders can submit. Canadian magazines do something similar if they get government grants; such magazines are required to have 80% Canadian content. So I found a submission period, submitted a story, and tried to put it out of my mind. Anyone who has spent time submitting short stories to magazines will tell you that the best thing you can do is try not to think about it because it takes a while to get an answer. Six months later I still hadn't heard back from the people at Aurealis. That was odd. I dug into their submission guidelines and saw that I shouldn't query until it had been two months. Since it had been six, I felt I wasn't being impatient. I sent them a query about my story. This is the reply I got: Dear Ben, Our response time for subscribers is no more than two months and can be more than twice as long for non-subscribers, but we are always aiming for much shorter turnarounds. As your submission came to us as a non-subscriber, it was not fast tracked and is still in the submissions list to be read by our readers. -- Kind regards, Cas Le Nevez Submissions Manager Aurealis Magazine www.aurealis.com.au That put me off. Their submission guidelines indicate a two-month query horizon without mentioning anything about being a non-subscriber. But let's take them at their word. It might be as long as four months for those who dared to submit to the magazine without subscribing. I was making a six-month query and being told that my submission was still unread, not in process, not working its way through the bureaucracy, but "to be read." The idea that my story had been sitting with them for six months and was still unread boggled my mind. The indication that it was my punishment for being a non-subscriber was likewise odd. Setting aside purely emotional responses, I thought it was strange that there was no mention of what I might expect in the future. That's both rude and unprofessional. As of this writing, I have made 886 short-story submissions to various speculative fiction venues, so I consider myself well-experienced in the process. Still, I didn't want to do anything precipitous. Many of these magazines are run on a shoestring by haggard well-meaning people. Sometimes they get touchy at the implication that they aren't being responsive. They have great guilt kung fu. That's why I waited six months to query. Since I was already six months in, I decided to let it ride. Often the act of querying a long-overdue piece gets the wheels greased, encouraging an editor to make a decision on a story. At day 208--as indicated on my handy-dandy Submission Grinder page--I had enough. I was seven months in and they hadn't read it. The complete lack of guidance or sympathy from the Aurealis submissions manager combined with his non-subscriber shaming led me to believe that he intended to string me along for many more months. Feeling well abused, I sent a one line withdrawal email to the submissions manager. It was a triumph of self-control that I didn't embellish it with any smartassery. I was pissed off, but that was the end of it. Or not. I got this reply to my withdrawal (my underlining): Hi Ben, Thank you for letting us know. We hope you continue to submit to Aurealis in future and I wish you all the best with your publishing endeavours. -- Kind regards, Cas Le Nevez Submissions Manager Aurealis Magazine www.aurealis.com.au Ostensibly this human-form turd of a submissions manager was having fun at my expense. No reasonable person would expect anyone thus abused for seven months to ever consider dealing with Aurealis again. So I replied that I would never again submit anything to Aurealis. Unless you are a masochist with abysmal self-esteem, I suggest you do likewise. Comments are closed.
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