Answers to Some Questions About Our Submissions Process

We’ve recently gotten some questions about our submissions process and have put together a few answers for you. If you’re thinking about submitting a novel to us, or a short story to one of our open anthologies, please read on.

Q. Who should I address my novel submission to?

A. All novel submissions are read by our Publisher and Head of Acquisitions, Carrie Cuinn. At this time she would be the person who would make a decision on your novel, novella, or short story collection, so please put your cover letters to her attention.

Q. What about Don Pizarro or K. V. Taylor?

A. K.V. Taylor is a frequent contributor and the co-editor of FISH, but is not an employee of Dagan Books. Don Pizarro is an editor on multiple projects, but is not currently reading novel submissions.

Q. If you turn down my novel, can I rewrite my query letter and try again?

A. Unless your novel has drastically changed from our first rejection, please don’t resubmit it. We do keep track of the queries we receive, and while multiple queries makes you memorable, it isn’t for a good reason.

Q. Why don’t you accept romance novels, sword-and-sorcery fantasy novels, works with religious themes or [insert other genre here]?

A. Because we don’t want to publish those things. Partially it’s because they’re not genres that we read much of, for fun, and partially because by limiting our books to the genres we truly love, we can make better decisions. We’ll be comparing your work to a wider range of books, because we’ll have read more in that genre, and we’ll know what’s selling, what’s lacking in the market, and so on. There are plenty of other publishers who would be interested in your manuscript about the power of Angels to bring you romance, for example, but that’s not what we’re looking for.

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Official Table of Contents for FISH

Table of Contents, FISH (due out February 8, 2012)

  1. Alexa, Camille “The Skin of Her Skin”
  2. Bennardo, Matthew “The Fish-Wife’s Tale”
  3. Blake, Polenth “Thwarting the Fiends”
  4. Darrach, Shay “I Know a Secret”
  5. Davis, Amanda C. “O How the Wet Folk Sing”
  6. Dixon, Paul A. “One Let Go”
  7. Duyvis, Corinne “The Applause of Others”
  8. Englehardt, Megan “Anansi and the New Thing”
  9. Fleming, Sam “What the Water Gave Her”
  10. Fuller, Andrew “A Salmon Tale, 2072”
  11. Fullerton, H.L. “The Fish Are There On Land”
  12. Gardner, Cate “Too Delicate for Human Form”
  13. George, Zachary “You, Fish”
  14. Hendrix, Sarah “Never to Return”
  15. Kane, Tim “Vanity Mirror”
  16. Kneeland, Andrea “Becoming Human”
  17. Kwak, Jessie “Needlepoint Fish of Azure City”
  18. L’Orange, April “Quick Karma”
  19. Lalumière, Claude “Xandra’s Brine”
  20. Liu, Ken “How Do You Know If a Fish Is Happy?”
  21. McBride, Tracie “The Touch of Taniwha”
  22. McIntyre, T.J. “How Did the Catfish Get a Flat Head, You Wonder?”
  23. Nakayama, Timothy “Fallen Dragon”
  24. Naquin, R.L. “Kisses In the Snow”
  25. Obedoza, Mel “The Fisherman and Golden Fish”
  26. Palmer, Suzanne “Lanternfish In the Overworld”
  27. Povey, Jennifer R. “Water Demons”
  28. Rambo, Cat “The Fisher Queen”
  29. Romasco-Moore, Maria “Fisheye”
  30. Ruby, Jacob “The Talking Fish of Shangri-La”
  31. Shvartsman, Alex “Life at the Lake’s Shore”
  32. Spencer, A. D. “Fish Tears”
  33. Unger, Vivian “A Fish Tail”
  34. Wood, Mjke “The Last Fisherman of Habitat 37”
  35. Zup, Andreea “Maria and the Fish”

Please note the Table of Contents is currently listed alphabetically by author’s last name, and does not reflect the final order of stories.

Readercon Link Roundup

Recently some of our staff attended Readercon 22, just outside of Boston, MA. Publisher Carrie Cuinn and editor Don Pizarro wrote up some thoughts on the event on their own websites, which you can find below:

From Carrie:

Readercon, The Loot Edition (or, what happens in the dealers room has to find space in your luggage)
Readercon 2011 Recap: Thursday / Friday
Readercon 2011 Recap: Saturday / Sunday (and we’re done)

and So You Want to Write an Author Blurb? Readercon Edition, With Advice from Ken Liu and Don Pizarro

From Don we have deeper thoughts about individual panels:

ReaderCon Shout-Outs, an intro of sorts
“He held the Beast of the Apocalypse by its tail, the stupid kid!”, a look at Mike Allen’s ”Speculative Poetry Workshop.
“Sooner or later, it comes down to you and the paper.” a write-up on the “What Writing Workshops Do and Don’t Offer” panel
Know Your Limit, the  ”Writing Within Constraints” panel
Foreign Deviltry, about the ”Complicating Colonial Encounters” panel
Feeling Very Fuzzy, the “Surrealism and Strong Emotion” and “Feeling Very Post-Slipstream” panels
“I am dressed as the woman of the opposite sex”, about the ”Daughters of the Female Man” panel

and A Day Late and A Dollar Short, a wrap-up, or something like it.

Overall, it was a wonderful convention, and one we’re planning to have a bigger presence at next year.