Ralan.com reports that the Mount Zion Review is now a dead market. This is of particular interest to me because I’m one of the authors whose work was set to appear in the August ‘07 issue, which kept being pushed back and back, first to October, then to December and then…death. Fittingly, the editors didn’t even let anyone know. The last indication we–and by ‘we’ I mean the contributing authors–got was a blog entry dated September 4 with the title line: “We are not dead!”:
All reading is caught up and the next issue is full. We are putting it together and plan to be printing soon.
We are briefly closed to submissions.
As always, thank you for your support and encouragement.
Lo and behold, they are dead.
In the wake of the passing of Mount Zion, I have to ask: would it have been too much to ask that you at least give the contributors an explanation, or let us know that we’re free to start shopping our stories around again? Sure, we suspected (or at least I did, and I can’t speak for any of the others. I don’t even know who any of the others are. Or were.) the new issue wasn’t going to come out, but kept waiting, kept checking the blog, hoping for another entry, but nothing came. How about a “We’re dead!” entry for those of us who were stuck waiting?
I read a lot of editors telling writers to mind their guidelines. The best way, they say, to ensure your submission never gets read is to stray from the format they want it written in. That’s fine; I don’t have a problem with it and I understand it. But if you make demands of the contributors who, let’s face it, are the food that feeds your mouth, can’t you at least give them the same friendly courtesy? The problem, of course, is that there are more writers in the world than readers, so no matter how crass an editor might be, the subs still keep rolling in. I like editors. Most of the ones I’ve dealt with have been class acts. With one notable exception.
Farewell, Mount Zion Review. May your editors’ toes sprout carbuncles.
If you liked that post, then try these...
How I Got My First Story Published on August 27th, 2007
Douglas Adams Tribute on May 23rd, 2008
The Novella Format on January 16th, 2008
Wagon Hill, my Sleepy Hollow on October 5th, 2005
Various and Sundry on January 30th, 2008
