One piece of advice I always give to people who are starting up magazines is: you have to realize this is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to be in it for the long haul. You have to build things so that they’re sustainable.
And when you start to feel weary and burned out and frustrated, when you feel your enthusiasm start to fade, you need to change things up.
That’s what we’ve done at the Shimmer Fictionwerks.
I’m pleased to announce that Issue 14, which we’ll release in late October at the World Fantasy Convention, is probably the last issue of Shimmer that I’m going to edit personally.
Oh, that doesn’t mean Shimmer’s going away. Not at all! We’re in it for the long haul. We’ve been here since 2005, and we’ll be here for many more years.
It means that I’m turning the editorial reins over to Elise Tobler. She’s Shimmer’s most steadfast volunteer, and I’ve relied on her since 2006. She’s got great taste, and a sure hand with editing stories. She’ll be selecting and editing all the stories beginning with Issue 15 (scheduled for release early next year).
Elise has already picked some great stories for Issue 15, and I can’t wait to see what treasures she finds for the rest of the issue.
Promoting Elise meant we needed to beef up our editorial ranks, which was good news for Associate Editors Keffy Kehrli and Grá Linnaea: they’re both now full editors, helping discover the perfect stories for publication.
And me? Oh, I still have plenty to do. I’ll just be focusing more on my role as publisher now. I’ll be working on all the things that I never seemed to have time for before, like working with our Minister of Layout to get Shimmer into various ebook formats and getting them into stores. And I’ll be looking at other ways to expand our offerings and bring our readers more of the Shimmery stories they’ve come to expect from us. I’ll be dreaming up special projects and making them happen.
So that’s the news. My very deep thanks to Elise, Keffy, and Grá for being so willing to put in even more effort to make Shimmer thrive.
Congratulations Elise and good to know you’ll still be part of the team Beth.
I was almost afraid that this was going to be a Bye-Bye Shimmer post. What a relief it was to actually read the whole post! Like Cate, I am also glad that you’re still going to be a part of the magazine, just not tackling chief editor duties. I trust that Elise and Keffy and Grá will make you (and your readers) proud and continue to find Shimmery stories to share with us.