I had a very encouraging response to my open call - with stories submitted by established authors as well as yet-to-be-published writers - and, as a result, I will be spending the next few months going through the submissions to see which ones will finally make it into print.
However, I do have one word of advice for anybody hoping to submit to any other short story anthologies, and I'm not just talking about mine here, and that is this: follow the submissions guidelines to the letter.
Whatever curious formatting requests have been made have been made for a reason; to ignore them is to give the impression that you're not taking this writing business seriously. And if you want your story to be considered at all, when other more well-known authors have also submitted stories, follow the submissions guidelines.
Here endeth the lesson.
Thank you, Jonathan! Whenever I put out a call for submissions for a book I'm editing I also have very specific formatting guidelines, and it boggles my mind at how many people -- including established authors -- who ignore them. Editors ask for submissions to be sent in a particular format for a REASON. I used to be more forgiving and just change the formatting myself, but anymore I generally reject anything not properly formatted without even reading it, even from established names, and especially if I've gotten a lot of subs. If you aren't going to be courteous and professional enough to submit your work as instructed then I'm not going to waste my time reading it.
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