John Joseph Adams

John Joseph Adams.   He's been an assistant editor and full editor for a number of magazines and anthologies.  And he's been a... I don't know personal frustration... for years. No other editor has read more of my stuff. Even Dean Wesley Smith has read only thirty to thirty-five of my stories. JJA may have read sixty or more. I've mentioned this before but it's been awhile.  Anyway, or has he read that many?   As stated in an earlier post someone said he only buys from writers who have a few sells.

I did some research at Lightspeed and Fantasy Magazine. He edits both of those even though supposedly there is some editor change going on at Lightspeed even though I haven't found anything on the magazine website that states that. Which may not mean much but getting back to my topic. I checked about ten to fifteen stories at each mag. I found one writer that may have had only three published stories. All the rest had quite a few more. I have seen writer blurbs in other pro markets that state that this is the writer's first sell or they list one other published story. Seemed like I saw that when JJA worked for Fantasy and Science Fiction but can't be sure now. To be fair four or five issues is not a very large sample and a couple of those writers listed non pro markets as well as pro.

So maybe I was right in my somewhat snide comment about him reading the cover letters to check on the credits first.  In which case how many stories of mine has he actually read? And should I keep trying with him? He did send my a personal note a few years ago which would have been right after my Honorable Mention sell to Strange New Worlds but I don't know if I listed it at that point.

Of course if he does read all stories the question reminds of how far has he gotten with my stories- just the opening, a few pages or the whole thing-- but that's a different discussion and the same one I can ask of any editor. If he does read my stories he most probably knows why I haven't gotten any other credits. After this amount of time that's not puzzlement.

I'll probably keep sending him stuff, who knows I may get Blessed again and at the very least he will write me another note. But it would be nice to know if does read them.