S.B. Milne

Well, here we are, it’s December 2nd, and the submission window for Gender Ever After has closed. It was interesting to see the ebb and flow of submissions over time, but even as a procrastinating author myself, I wasn’t expecting the final 15 sneaking in under the deadline.

I will be doing a lot of reading and making some tough decisions over the coming weeks, but I want to offer my sincere thanks to everyone who participated. I wasn’t sure what to expect of my first professional anthology, but you’ve fulfilled my wildest dreams for the experience. The depth and breadth of submissions have been fantastic, and I’m just as excited about the new authors I’ve met as I am the bookshelf celebrities who honored me with their stories.

Final Submission Statistics

None of this has any impact on the submissions themselves, but I love numbers, so I thought I’d share a final count for those who are curious.

Geography: 62% of submissions have come from the US, 16% from Canada, 9% from UK/Australia, and the rest from around the world

Length: Submissions have averaged just under 3500 words, with the shortest being 2010 and the longest 6238

Queer Authors: Approximately 47% of authors have self-identified as queer/trans/nonbinary, including 56% of those submitting over the final 2 weeks

Early Rejections: The most perplexing or frustrating reasons for my early rejections? No romantic elements, no sapphic/lesbian/WLW relationship, and (this one is still a head-scratcher) no female characters

Early Acceptance: I still have half of the submission to read, but of those that I have read and gleefully slipped directly into the YES pile, 2 were written by nonbinary authors, 5 have a transgender/nonbinary identity, and 1 has a bisexual relationship

What’s Next?

As I mentioned, I will be doing a lot of reading and making some tough decisions over the coming weeks. My plan is to have my choices made by mid-month, after which I need to sit down and figure out how they all fit/flow together so I can structure the anthology and draft my introduction.

My deadline for turning in the complete manuscript is the end of December, so I’ll know more about the next steps and publishing timelines after that.

The publisher has final say over story selection, so I will be keeping 1 or 2 alternates in my back pocket (just to be safe), but given the quality and variety of submissions, I’m not concerned.